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MAN, 



IN HIS RELATIONS TO SOCIETY. 



BY ROBERT MUUIE, 



LCIBOR OF "THE H E A V E X S, ' T K K FOUR SKiSO! 
'THE BRITISH NATC8ALIST," &C. ^VC. 



"%^ 




\VM. S. ORB & CO.. AMEN ( ORNER, 
PATERNOSTER ROW. 



MDCfCXL.- 



PREFACE. 



Although this volume is one, the preparation of which 
has been attended with more labour, and more necessity of 
guarding against error, than some others of the series, yet 
I am not sure but some may regard the title of it as, in part 
at least, a misnomer ; and therefore the few prefatory re- 
marks which I mean to offer, may perhaps be most usefully 
directed to a little explanation on this point. The mistake, 
if it should arise, will probably be occasioned by the subject 
of the book being the adaptations of Man to society, and 
not the conventional regulations which societies of men 
establish, as they suppose, for the general weal, or, a.t all 
events, for the weal of the parties making the regulations. 
But, with all due submission to the authorities, I must be 
permitted to state, that codes of laws, whether civil, criminal, 
or of any other denomination, are not and cannot become 
matters of any kind of philosophy. They are mere in- 
ferences from the nature of Man, and his adaptation to 
society ; and therefore they can be good and true only in 
so far as the contrivers of them understand their subjects, 
and act in conformity with them. Nor is this all ; for even 
admitting the regulation to be good at the time when made, 

III. A 



IV PREFACE. 

and put in execution, society is in itself so mutable, and 
this mutability constitutes so important a quality of it, that, 
in a very short time, the best law, or combination of laws 
or other regulations, that can possibly be made, must be- 
come antiquated, and the continuance of it a bane to society, 
and not a blessing. Any one who looks at the system of 
regulation in an old country, more especially if that system 
is complicated, will find abundant proofs of what has now 
been stated, as well as of the pertinacity with which mere 
habit induces, and, indeed, compels even sensible men to 
cling to old customs and regulations, after the spirit and 
usefulness of them are gone, and their corrupting carcases 
are spreading pestilence through the social atmosphere. 
We name none of them, but there are few reflective readers 
to whom many will not occur, in which not only the sins 
but even the virtues, or, at all events, the virtuous inten- 
tions of the parents continue to be visited upon the chil- 
dren after the lapse of many generations, — rendering the 
war which the present generation has to wage against the 
absurdities of antiquity far more serious than the whole 
physical evils with which the present generation have to 
contend. 

Feeling the unphilosophical nature of this subject, and 
the impossibility of dealing with it, without a constant war- 
fare against absurdities and evils which ought long ere now 
to have been exploded, I have studiously avoided all ana- 
lysis of the conventional regulations of society, and, indeed, 
all allusion to principles upon which these regulations ought 
to be made. Society is a perfect Proteus ; for while one 



PREFACE. V 

attempts to seize it in one form, it instantly changes to a 
very different one. Therefore, Man himself, the component 
part, by the multiplication or aggregation of which society 
is formed, is the only subject with which we can deal in a 
matter which can bear the test of philosophic scrutiny. 
To Man, therefore, the attention of the reader of this volume 
is directed. In the first chapter, I have endeavoured to 
point out and to illustrate every man's original relation to 
society, his obligation to it, and the duty which that im- 
poses upon him ; and in this I have made the illustrations 
as copious and as original as I possibly could. In the second 
chapter, I have treated of the reciprocal duties of Man, and 
the society of which he is a member; and I have illustrated 
the general principle by a few instances which appeared 
to me as being at once the most popular and the most 
striking. 

This may be regarded as the general statement of the 
case; and from this I have proceeded to what maybe called 
the elements of useful society, as founded in Man himself. 
In doing this, I have first considered the social adaptations 
of Man in a general point of view ; and then through the 
medium of the immediate, the retrospective, and the pro- 
spective emotions, — endeavouring to point out the conse- 
quences resulting from the proper and from the improper 
management of all the leading ones. In doing this, I have 
had occasion to examine some of the favourite theories of 
moral good and evil with some attention, but not, as I 
flatter myself, with any bitterness, or any desire but for the 
truth. I have endeavoured to make the work true in prin- 



VI PREFACE. 

ciple, moral in tendency, and as plain and simple in ex- 
pression as possible ; and with the statement of these my 
endeavours, I leave my success or failure to the candour of 
that public to which I am under so many obligations. 

ROBERT MUDIE. 

Winchester, July 1, 1839. 



ANALYSIS OF THE CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



Man's original relation to society— Obligation thence arising— 
Length of every man's pedigree— All men equal at birth — Man 
has no original rights— Man's claim on society in equity- 
Relative obligations in different countries — Extent of the 
primary obligation and duty thence arising— Man independent 
and alone— Milton's Adam— The real first man— Man's original 
ignorance— Man and society — Laws are not philosophical- 
Religious and political disputes and their evils— Probable cause 
of holy rancour— State of the argument . . page 1 — 43 

CHAPTER II. 

RECIPROCAL DUTIES OF MAN AND SOCIETY. 

Duty to God— Its real nature — Its infantine display— Its pro- 
gressive displays— Duty to be mentally active— Agitation and 
its corrective — Our primary obligation— Education— Our second 
obligation — Love and self-love— States of society— True and 
false guides — Character and reputation — Negative duties — 
Justice— Passive loyalty— Distinctions of ranks and their duties 
—Resident and non-resident proprietors — Corn-laws— Duties 
of landlords— Claim of society on landlords— Duties of society 
—Public institutions— Public opinion . . . 44 — 91 

CHAPTER III. 

SOCIAL ADAPTATIONS OF MAN. 

The'solitary — The social principle not instinctive— Various mean- 
ings of society— Society not generally definable— Sections of 



Viii CONTENTS. 

society— A man of the world— An outcast— Attachments and 
idolatry of classes — Stealing a march on society — Duty of 
society— Limitations of the study — Farmer and manufacturer 
— The arts— Quacks— Parson and clown . . .page 92—115 

CHAPTER IV. 

THE SOCIAL EMOTIONS OF MAN— IMMEDIATE EMOTIONS. 

General definition of the emotions— Social emotions— Moral phy- 
siognomy—Necessary caution— Emotion of beauty— Importance 
of the emotions— An iufant thief— Feeling a virtue— Use of law 
— Relation of virtue and beauty — Young emotion— Sympathy, 
its power, use, and benefit— Despair— Magical power of sym- 
pathy—Sympathy with nature and its effects— Love and hate — 
Pride and humility— Honest pride— Haughtiness— Vanity— Its 
contrast with pride— Reflection .... 116—164 

CHAPTER V. 

SOCIAL EMOTIONS— RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

General nature of such emotions— Several kinds of them— Glad- 
ness — Regret — Gloom — Contrast of character — Stimuli to 
thought and action— Conscience and consciousness— Influence 
of conscience — Moral feeling — Error respecting moral feeling — 
Bad men have moral feeling — Gratitude and anger — Motive for 
gratitude — Its real foundation— Its effects— Its regulation — 
Causes of anger— Evils and uses of anger— Public indignation — 
Furor of the mob — Restraining of anger . . . 165—201 

CHAPTER VI. 

SOCIAL EMOTIONS — PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

Dangerous error on this subject — Animal life knows neither past 
nor future — The human body is in the same predicament— Con- 
nection of the past and the future — Nature and regulation of the 
prospective emotions — Nature and regulation of desire — 
Erroneous education — Ennui — Process of desire and reasoning 
— Uncertainty and variableness of desire— Habits and their in- 
fluence—Contrast of the over-tended and the neglected— Self- 
formed characters— Physical good — Desire of life — Desire of 
long life — Moral good and evil — Differences of profession— The 



CONTENTS. IX 

cobbler and the thief— The heathen gods— London abominations 
Idea of moral good— The divine-right theory— The Tory principle 
— The hypocritical theory — Illustration of a thieves' attorney — 
Theory of the fitness of things — Utility and utilitarians — Utility 
no virtue— Fallacy of Hume— Moral feeling — Important in- 
fluence of moral feeling — Misery of the mean-spirited — Con- 
trast of the vicious and the virtuous— The sympathetic hypo- 
thesis—Absurdity of the selfish system— The sacerdotal hypo- 
thesis— Fallibility and the fall of Man— The error of Dr. Paley, 
and its destructiveness of all virtue — Relation between virtue 
and religion— True religion and its counterfeit— State of the 
social mind— State of the public mind— Religion and politics- 
Various desires and fears 202—280 

CHAPTER VII. 

SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 

Idea of social institutions— Difficulties of social regulation— In- 
tentions and law-making— Difficulties in making wholesome 
laws— Illustrations— Law-makers— Conclusion . 281—292 



M A N, 



IN HIS RELATIONS TO SOCIETY. 



CHAPTER I. 



PRELIMINARY REMARKS. 



As concerns the foundation of morals, and the eternal 
well-being of Man, the relation in which he stands 
to his Maker is unquestionably the highest in im- 
portance ; and, viewing Man as a being who must 
act upon knowledge of his own acquiring, the relation 
in which he stands to physical nature, as an observer 
of the properties of its substance, and the laws of its 
phenomena, so that he may turn the one and the 
other to his use and comfort, as occasion requires, is 
also of such importance, that it is indispensable to his 
very existence. 

But, although these two relations are so important 
to every member of the human race that they may be 
said to be his all for eternity and for time, yet they 
are to the individual only, — to every one of the race 
singly, and by and for himself; and if, in the latter 
relation — perhaps even in the former, if he were to 
be thrown as completely and exclusively upon himself 



'J MAN'S NATURAL OBLIGATION 

for his means as he is for his end, his condition would 
he mean, wretched, and miserable, as compared with 
the condition of even the least comfortable of those 
we see around us in such a country as England. 
Therefore, in a practical point of view, the most im- 
portant branch of the knowledge of Man is that of the 
relations in which he stands to society. This is 
general, and applicable to the whole race, in so far 
as they are known to, or have any influence upon, 
each other ; and its importance is not, in any, mea- 
sured by the deserts or by the knowledge of the 
individual. So far, indeed, is this from being the 
case, that a man's faults always, and his deficiencies 
in knowledge generally, are crimes against that 
society of which he is a member. 

Thus, before we can come fairly and fully prepared 
to the consideration of the simple and temporary re- 
lation in which a man stands to society, to their 
respective mutual and reciprocal duties, and to the 
means which they have or ought to have for the right 
performance of those duties, there is a preliminary 
question, of far more consequence than any which is 
met with at the threshold of our other inquiries con- 
cerning Man, and one which demands our attention at 
some considerable length. For the sake of a general 
point upon which the several parts of the inquiry may 
be concentrated, the preliminary question may be 
enunciated in these words, — " In what relation does 
Man, that is, every man, stand to society at the mo- 
ment of his birth ? " 

When put in these general terms, the question does 



TO SOCIETY. 3 

not admit of a direct answer; and before we can 
get an answer which shall be precise and definite, we 
must narrow it to the case of some one individual of 
the human race, a foundation so narrow that no 
reasoning could be founded upon it. No doubt this 
is the very form in which every man ought to put the 
question to himself; and not merely put it, but get a 
full and clear understanding of it, otherwise, he will 
not be able either to do his duty to society as he 
ought, or to live happily in it. A veiy large propor- 
tion of the misunderstandings, discontents, broils, 
distractions, squabbles, and absolute outbreaks and 
wars, which disturb the peace, retard the improvement, 
and destroy the comfort of society, have their source 
in ignorance of this question, and in nothing else ; 
and we hesitate not to say that, if it were generally 
understood, and habitually acted upon, men would be 
at peace with each other, and all would be prosperous 
and happy. 

But this result, delightful as it would be in itself, 
and simple as the means of its accomplishment appear, 
is, we fear, to be classed among the desirable only, 
and not in any wise among the expected. At least, as 
society and the means of schooling society in know- 
ledge stand at present, there is nothing mooted which 
in the least tends to its accomplishment. Indeed, 
though the school of pupillage and of the world were 
as good as they are confessedly — no, not " con- 
fessedly " — demonstratively bad, we know not in what 
manner they could introduce this question as a part 
of their system. That is a hopeless sort of teaching 



4 EVERY MAN HAS 

in which the pupil has all the necessary information 
and the teacher none ; for the teacher, let him be as 
gifted as he may, cannot tell how the information — 
the elements of that which is to be taught, ought to 
be applied, unless he first is made acquainted with 
what they are ; and this is all the knowledge that is 
wanted in the present case. 

No man can, indeed, bring the question into such 
perfect apposition to his own individual case, as that he 
can see the full weight of obligation which the rela- 
tion may impose ; because he cannot know all the cir- 
cumstances which led to the condition of the society in 
which he was born, or to the states, the characters, 
and the habits of his parents, and those others who 
may have been about him, and have had an influence 
in the formation of his character, and in opening up 
a way in the world for his reception. Even if he 
knew all this perfectly, it is only one link of a very 
long chain, and a chain which branches out into many 
parts at each link. We cannot tell who or what in- 
fluenced those who were immediately about us, and 
far less who and what influenced their ancestors in 
every one of the numerous generations, the majority 
of which were, in as far as this world is concerned, 
gone to oblivion before we saw the light. A Welsh 
pedigree is proverbial for its length, but the longest 
of these is a mere span to the moral and social pedi- 
gree of the humblest man of the most obscure lineage 
in England. The most laborious and lynx-eyed anti- 
quary in the country cannot trace his ancestry back- 
ward to the time when his progenitors were at the 



A LONG PEDIGREE. .J> 

very depth of savage ignorance, or even upon what 
spot of the earth's surface they existed when they 
were in that condition ; and as little can he detail the 
means by which they escaped from that state, or the 
number of alternations of savage and demi-savage 
through which they were compelled to vacillate before 
civilization had become a plant of such permanence 
and vigour in their horde, as that it was able to 
maintain its place, and continue its growth, despite 
the wars of chiefs, and the turbulences and broils of 
vassals. 

Yet has every man reason to believe that, by some 
means or other, the race or the family to which he 
belongs, how long and how illustrious soever its 
flourish may be in the Heralds' College, as Right 
Worshipful, or Most Noble, — by some means or other 
they have come from such an origin, and through 
such vicissitudes as those which we have named ; and, 
for every advance which they have made, in this long 
and varied chain of succession, the man who is now 
born of the race or the family, is a debtor to some 
party or some circumstances or other, how ignorant 
soever he may be as to who or what they were. 

Thus, we cannot possibly know the position in 
which society must have stood to us at the moment of 
our birth ; and this ignorance, of which we never can 
get rid, is enough to reprove us in the sharpest man- 
ner when we feel inclined to boast of our own inde- 
pendence and importance. But, though we do not 
know the conditions on which society met us when 
we virtually entered into the social compact with our 

b 3 



6 ALL MEN EQUAL 

nation or our tribe at our birth, we do know, by ob- 
servation, though not by personal knowledge, the 
condition in which we ourselves were to this same 
compact. We came to it in utter ignorance, not only 
of all that had been done by men to prepare society 
for our reception, but of the existence of the world 
and every thing in it, and even of the fact of our own 
existence. This is true of the natural condition of 
all men, whether they are born at a time and in a 
country when and where the light of science is in its 
greatest splendour, and all the arts, useful and orna- 
mental, are in the highest degree of perfection, or 
whether we are born in a land in which the inhabitants 
have not yet learned to frame a canal, form a spear, 
or kindle a fire. And, as it is true of the distinctions 
of nations and hordes, so it is true of the distinction 
of ranks in society, whatever the grounds of the dis- 
tinction may be. The son of the most profound phi- 
losopher is in as utter ignorance at the moment, as 
the son of the most demented idiot to whom a son 
can be born ; and the son of the proudest monarch 
that ever lived, is in as total ignorance at his birth, 
and in himself as unfit for the acquiring of any know- 
ledge, as the son of the houseless beggar that passes 
his nights in the shelter of a bush upon the common. 
Then, as in knowledge, so in strength and resource, 
they are all utterly and equally helpless ; and, if left 
to themselves, the one and the other would alike 
perish, as a matter of nature and necessity. 

Therefore, one and all of us come to the social 
compact, enter into society at the moment of our 



AT THEIR BIRTH. / 

birth, upon what may be called a perfect moral 
equality. None of us has any ground to reproach 
another afterwards upon any inequality ; and though 
some foolish individuals do boast of their high and 
honourable birth, they are little aware how the real 
case of the elevation and honour stands, or, assuredly, 
they would be very silent and humble upon the point. 
When men boast of their high birth, or of the rank 
and fortune prepared for them at their coming into 
the world, to what, in truth and reality, does the 
boast amount ? Why, simply to this, that they are 
under greater obligations to society, and have more 
important and imperious duties to discharge to that 
society, than men who have no such advantages of 
birth. We do not in the meantime inquire into the 
manner in which the title, the rank, or the fortune 
was obtained. It may have been in the most honour- 
able manner, or it may have been the very opposite — 
for we have examples of both kinds and all degrees ; 
but, however it came, is a question for those by and 
to whom it did come, and not for their children. The 
descendant of a really great man has no share what- 
ever in the greatness ; and the descendant of a suc- 
cessful villain is in no wise answerable for any share 
of the villany. The plain question, — and it is so 
plain that nobody can possibly mistake it, — is, e ' What 
claim can the individual ground upon his own merits 
at the moment of his birth ?" — and the universal an- 
swer to this question — the answer which admits not of 
one single exception, is <f None," — " Naked they " all 
"came into the world; 55 and this nakedness — this 



3 MAN S ORIGINAL CLAIM. 

utter destitution, is the only claim that they, or any of 
them, originally have upon society. Therefore, when 
a man boasts that, in the estimation of the world, his 
father was " a great man," the personal truth of the 
boast is, that he is himself "a great beggar," — or 
" great debtor," if the words are preferred, but the 
meaning is the same. 

This is the natural condition of the whole human 
race, with reference to society. They come into the 
world utterly helpless and incapable ; and, therefore, 
they are indebted to society, or to some part of society, 
for the simple fact of the preservation of their lives, 
during that period when they are incapable of doing 
any thing for themselves. If there is any thing more 
■ — if, in consequence of his birth being in one country 
and of one parentage rather than in another country 
and of another parentage, a man shall derive any 
distinction or advantage in society, that advantage, 
whatever it may be, is not a credit to him, — it is a debt. 
The common phrase runs that a man is " creditably 
born;" but this is the very reverse of the truth; for 
the man is really the more a debtor, the greater the 
advantages of his birth ; and therefore the expression 
ought to be " debitably born ;" for the more he is 
born to, the more he is a debtor to society. 

It must not be supposed that, in these observations 
— observations which have their foundation in the 
original truth of the case, and cannot be shaken by 
sophistry, how much soever they may, like all truths, 
be liable to be beaten down by the rod of authority — 
it must not be supposed that we are in any way quar- 



ALL MEN DEBTORS. ^ 

relling with the conventional arrangements of society, 
or even in the slightest degree hinting that men 
should not inherit thus or thus, according to what- 
ever the custom and the law, — which is only custom 
supported by authority, and ought not to be made 
amenable at the bar of abstract justice, — may rule or 
direct in the matter. 

We shall probably have occasion, in a future 
chapter, to say something about conventional customs, 
and when the time comes, we shall endeavour to do 
it as fairly as possible, though with what approbation 
we need not now say. But in the meantime we have 
nothing to do with such matters, our object being 
simply to see the grounds upon which society and 
any individual man meet each other at the very first, 
because that is the only true foundation upon which 
any argument can be built. 

In this view of the matter, all men come into 
society equal in themselves, and with no equivalent 
which they can presently give for the trouble that it 
may take to save them ; and thus they are all debtors 
to society from the very outset, and that in the exact 
ratio of their advantages, whatever those advantages 
may be. 

It may be supposed, and even said, that the grati- 
tude of the child is to its parents, for personal or 
hireling attention during the period of its nonage, 
and we should regret the statement of any thing that 
would tend to lessen the very proper feeling of filial 
duty. But, in reality, the attention which a parent 
bestows upon his children — apart altogether from 



10 MAN HAS NO ORIGINAL RIGHTS. 

the pleasure with which nature has endued the office, 
is not so much a credit to the parent, as the discharge 
of an obligation which he himself has lain under since 
the time of his own helplessness, during which he 
also received the attention of his parents. This 
paternal duty ought not, therefore, to be mixed up 
with the question of a man's obligation to society ; 
for it is a sort of debtor and creditor matter which 
balances itself, the debt owing to the parents of the 
individual being naturally payable to his children. 
There are some other of the domestic duties which 
compensate themselves in a similar manner; and 
consequently they, too, ought to be omitted in the 
argument. 

The original state of the social compact, with regard 
to every individual of the human race, is, that the man 
brings nothing into society, for that most plain and 
cogent of all reasons, that he really has nothing to 
bring. To talk of the " Original Rights of Man," is 
therefore to talk of that which, in the nature of things, 
can have no existence. Man has no original right 
except the right of discharging what he owes to so- 
ciety ; and there are perhaps not many, in any coun- 
try or age, who discharge those debts to the full 
extent. It may so happen, however, that the con- 
ventional laws and institutions of society may give a 
man what appear to be natural rights. Whether they 
may be so intended or not, is not the present inquiry ; 
but it is certain that enacted laws rarely, if ever, affect 
all the members of society with that equality of adap- 
tation which strict justice between man and man re- 



man's claim in equity. 11 

quires. Now, if the burden of the conventional law 
press too heavily upon any one member of society, 
that member has a " right" — a natural right if you 
will — a right far more sacred than any mere fiscal 
regulation, or any mere matter of government, to be 
released from the extra pressure. Depriving the man 
of this right is a very serious wrong ; for the crimes 
which the law commits are always far more injurious 
to the welfare of society than those which are com- 
mitted in violation of the law. This is the reason why 
nations which are governed by legislation are some- 
times more unjustly treated than those which are go- 
verned by despotism ; but the point is a nice one, and 
belongs not to this part of the argument. 

The conclusion at which we must arrive, therefore, 
is, that society owes nothing to Man at the outset ; 
but that Man owes everything to society; and the 
remainder of the inquiry, in the case of any individual 
man born of any nation during any age, turns upon 
what this " every thing" may amount to. The general 
answer is, " Every advantage which being born of 
that nation and during that age may give him." 

This general answer is, however, exceedingly vague ; 
and we cannot give it much precision without de- 
stroying its general applicability. There are some 
obvious points, however, which will give us at least 
some shadowy notion of it. The more civilized the 
country is, and the more equitable and just all its in- 
stitutions are, the greater the obligation which a man 
is under for being born in it. A man owes more for 
being born in New Zealand than in the Australian 



12 RELATIVE OBLIGATIONS TO 

bush ; more for being born in the Sandwich Isles than 
in New Zealand ; more for being born in the American 
States than the Sandwich Isles ; and more for being 
born in Britain than perhaps in any other country. 
Of course there are both national and individual 
opinions on these points, which are founded on feeling, 
not on fact ; and therefore, though they are quite unfit 
for argument, they ought to be respected — as it is 
very difficult for men to alter their feelings, however 
wrong they may be. Again, a man is under obliga- 
tion for being born in a district where the inducements 
to virtue predominate over the allurements to vice ; 
and, coeteris paribus, it is an obligation to be born in 
a populous and well-informed district, where the na- 
tural and the artificial means of acquiring knowledge, 
and employment, and the necessaries of life, are easily 
accessible. If however, we pursue this part of the 
argument, or the investigation rather, too far into 
details, we are apt to come to conflicting circum- 
stances, where the good on the one side and the evil 
on the other are not very easily balanced. 

Being born in an old country, that is, in a country 
having a long history* and containing many memorials 
and monuments of successive ages and their events, 
and which has, in the lapse of those ages, produced a 
numerous succession of illustrious men, lays a man 
under very considerable obligations. There are some 
persons, smit with admiration at what are called 
Utilitarian doctrines, but with no very clear percep- 
tions of what " utility '• really means, that affect to 
ridicule the influence of such recollections as those to 



DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. 13 

which we have alluded ; but such is the influence of 
our feelings, for good or for evil as may be, that it is 
doubtful whether any man ever became truly great 
without beginning his career with the admiration of 
some other men, who were then, or had formerly been, 
great in the very matters in which he became great 
himself, or in matters very nearly allied to them. So 
true is this, that it is highly probable that the me- 
mories of the illustrious men who have been connected 
with the Universities have probably more effect upon 
the students than all the prelections of the existing 
tutors. For the same reason, probably, great men 
appear in constellations in particular places, with 
blanks of dulness or mediocrity between, proportional 
in length to the natural want of stimulus in the 
place. 

As being born in an old country, where there are 
many stimulating recollections, lays him who is so 
born under an obligation, so does it when a man is 
born at an advanced stage of the world in general 
civilization. Lord Bacon is right in urging that, in 
point of mental advantage, we are the " ancestors" of 
those who lived in the early ages of the world. Of 
course he alludes to the advantage of greater experi- 
ence ; and had he himself lived in the present age, he 
would have been far greater, great man as he unques- 
tionably was. 

The fact is, that we are under obligations, and 
obligations which we shall never be able to discharge, 
to all the men who have had any active part in the 
advancement of any one branch of knowledge, or any 

in. c 



14 EXTENT OF THE 

one department of the useful or the ornamental arts ; 
and also to all who have been in any way the means of 
promoting the views of them, or of preserving the 
record, or even the simple memory, of what these men 
have done. 

Take what subject we will, and look in what direc- 
tion we may, we cannot fail to see that we are under 
obligations to society, not only greater than we can 
have any hope of discharging, but greater than we 
can sum up. View it as we will, people of all ages 
and nations, not only since the commencement of 
history, but for long before the record begun — for 
mankind must have done much in many departments 
of science and art before they were able to compile a 
history, — people of all ages and nations have been 
observing, and discovering, and doing for us and for 
our benefit ; and it avails nothing to say that they did 
it for themselves and not for us ; for we have the ad- 
vantage without giving any equivalent for it; and 
therefore the burden of the obligation is upon us 
exactly the same as if they had had our interest and 
accommodation solely in view. We have it, without 
having done any thing of ourselves to deserve it ; and 
therefore the obligation upon us is the same, in what- 
ever way, or from whatever motive, it may have been 
done. 

They prepared our fields, planted our orchards, im- 
proved our breeds of animals, and contrived all our 
implements of husbandry. They made roads and 
bridges for us, they cut canals, they opened mines, 
they established manufactures. They founded cities 



PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 15 

and towns, and built palaces, and ornamented the 
country for us with great labour and taste. They 
built our churches, and founded and endowed our 
colleges. They contrived for us the arts of reading, 
writing, and printing; wrote books for our amuse- 
ment and instruction ; and established libraries, where 
we might consult the treasures of knowledge which 
they had collected for us. To please us, they com- 
posed poems, painted pictures, and made statues ; 
and, in a word, in order that we might not be in 
ignorance or in want, they examined all the sub- 
stances in nature, and spent their days and their 
nights in labour, finding out in w T hat way they could 
be useful to us, or in any way contribute to our com- 
fort and happiness. There is not, in fact, a single 
subject that we can name, but which has been most 
laboriously scrutinized by men of first-rate ability, and 
this as much for our benefit as if they had been our 
hired servants. Far more, indeed ; for these were not 
menials, who worked only for the reward of their 
labour, and, having their whole affections set upon the 
reward, endeavoured to make the labour as light as 
possible. They went heart and hand to the work, 
honest enthusiasts, and as able as they were enthu- 
siastic ; — and we have the full benefit of it all, without 
money and without price. 

This is the debt which we owe to society — the obli- 
gation which is upon us the instant that we come into 
the world ; and for which we find we have no means 
of giving an equivalent. And is there nothing de- 
manded of us for all these advantages ? What we have 



16' DUTY ARISING FROM 

said of the successional duty of parents, and of a man 
repaying to his children what was due by himself to 
his father,, holds good in this general case as well as 
in that of any one individual. Societies and nations 
follow, in their obligations and discharges, exactly the 
same law as individuals and families. We cannot re- 
pay personally to the men of former times the kind- 
ness which they have left in legacy for us ; but we 
can take a lesson from their example. This is the 
only return which is demanded of us ; and we should 
be worse than ungrateful if we did not give it, and 
give it cheerfully, readily, and with all our ability. 
They did not spare themselves, so that we might be 
well-informed, well-appointed, and comfortable ; and 
shall we degrade their memory, and despise their 
bounty, in not following their example ? We are 
their offspring ; and shall we be unworthy and un- 
grateful children to those kind parents whom we 
never saw? Have we the feelings of men in us; and 
dare we, in violence and outrage of these feelings, 
render ourselves so very mean and contemptible ? We 
are the followers of many generations ; and a genera- 
tion, dear to us by the most sacred ties of human 
nature, will succeed us, and inhabit the earth, and 
continue the succession, when of us all that is mortal 
shall be mouldering in the grave. The former gene- 
rations have, one and all, laboured for our good ; and 
we have to transmit the good work only to one gene- 
ration. Can we be so unworthy of those from whom 
We are descended, and who have done so much for us, 
as to refrain from making all the little addition in our 



THE OBLIGATION. 17 

power, and handing down to posterity the original 
stock, with this small and easy addition ? It is im- 
possible : we would not surely stand out, among the 
whole human race, as the only generation that had 
brought disgrace upon the name. 

Such is the obligation which one and all of us are 
under to society; and such the only and the easy 
means which all of us have of discharging the obliga- 
tion. But there is another view of the matter which, 
if it does not address itself to our feeling of gratitude, 
comes much more closely home to our selfishness ; 
and which view, when impartially taken, and fairly 
and duly considered, is calculated to impress us more 
deeply with the sense of our obligation to society, 
and to stimulate us to the performance of our social 
duties, from a love of mankind, which is more than 
filial, — a love which is called, and which should be, 
universal philanthropy. In entering upon the con- 
sideration of this view, we must not suppose ourselves 
to be led away by any narrow speculations about the 
motives of those from whom we derive the benefit. 
Motives are in no case matters fit for philosophical 
inquiry, because we have no means of getting fairly 
at them. Even in the most trivial affairs of human 
life, those daily actions of routine, which are so in- 
different to the actors and to every one else that we 
never take the trouble of considering whether we 
ought to class them with the virtues or the vices, — 
even in them, we do not see — neither could we ascer- 
tain by the most scrutinizing investigation that we 
could institute, the motives of the action ; and often, 

c3 



18 VAGUENESS OF MOTIVES. 

.ndeed generally, those parties themselves cannot tell 
their motives. If the emotion is quite momentary, 
there is really no mental motive in the ease; and 
when it is the result of deliberation — of an intellec- 
tual process antecedent to the emotion, and giving 
rise to it — this process is often so complicated that 
neither the party himself nor any one else is able to 
analyze it. Hence, there is an imperfection in all 
criminal law, which, though it is unavoidable, yet very 
often makes the result such as to merit the equivocal 
name of criminal justice. The law affects great lenity 
to the ignorance, or rather the turbulent passion of 
the party offending, and, therefore, it does not come- 
down upon them in the full measure of its vengeance, 
unless there has been a motive, or animus, as it is called, 
in the case, as that which prompted the committing of 
the fact. Now, there can be no evidence of this 
animus except constructive evidence, inferred from 
circumstances ; and this is considered illegal and op- 
pressive in matters of fact. We suppose the usual 
plea is allowed in justification of the law here; the 
parties feel that they cannot do exactly what they 
ought to do, and therefore they do — the best they 
can. This is sufficient to show us that we ought not 
to mix up motives with first principles in matters of 
philosophy, how necessary soever they may be in the 
practical concerns of life. 

With this precaution, let us return to the obliga- 
tions which Man is under to society, and consider 
what would be his state if he had not these. To sim- 
plify this, we shall pass over the early stage, and sup- 



CAPACITY WITHOUT EXPERIENCE. 19 

pose that the man is so far advanced as that he can 
use the organs of his body, and, in some degree, the 
faculties of his mind. This is conceding much more 
than we ought to concede ; hut we can afford the con- 
cession, and so we shall make it. 

Suppose, then, that a man is in perfect possession 
of all of what we may call the powers and faculties of 
his body and his mind — that he is healthy, and strong, 
and vigorous, well-sinewed in all his limbs, acute and 
quick in the perception of all his senses, and ready 
and well- willed, as the saying is, to the use of them ; 
but that he has not yet used them, or any one of 
them; for that supposition would mar the whole 
matter, by putting him in possession of the very mat- 
ters which it is to be his business to acquire. We 
suppose that he has a perfect body, the use of every 
part of which he knows ; but which has never once 
been used for any purpose whatever. 

Then as to his mind, let that be — as in truth it is, 
from the very first moment of its conscious existence, 
and for how long before we do not know, — let the 
mind be every way worthy of the perfect body. Let 
it be such that it can instantly feel and comprehend 
any and every impression on the senses ; that it can 
make its comparisons and arrive at its conclusions, 
and further, that it can direct its emotions, all in the 
very best manner of which human nature is capable. 
But, like the body, which, in relation to its own func- 
tions, is equally "perfect, it must not have exercised 
any one of its capacities upon any subject or in any 
manner whatsoever. 



20 " independent' 5 man. 

Here we have then a perfectly formed man, who 
has come thus matured into a world, of which, and of 
every thing in it, he is utterly ignorant ; and the point 
for our consideration is, how he would conduct him- 
self in it. 

The world, too, into which he is to come, and " do 
the best he can for himself," must not be such a 
world as that to which we were born, or even such a 
world as the savages of the most wild and ignorant 
horde on the face of the earth are born to. That 
would be giving him those very gifts of society, of 
which, according to the hypothesis, he is to be per- 
fectly independent. The world must be one in which 
no man has ever performed even the smallest work, 
— some Juan Fernandez, where no Robinson Crusoe 
has ever been; and our Robinson must not be a 
shipwrecked mariner, but a man who, with all his 
faculties about him, and with nothing more, has 
sprung up out of the earth, or dropped down from 
the clouds, — seeing, hearing and scenting, all around 
him, and capable of seizing whatever he can reach, 
and doing all of which his strength is capable, and 
nothing more. 

What are to be the productions of the locality in 
which he is to make the first essay of his powers, we 
must not say ; for there is no such thing as a general 
assemblage of the productions, the spontaneous pro- 
ductions, of the earth, which would suit equally every 
spot upon its surface. But, as it might seem a hard 
matter to put a being totally unexperienced in an abso- 
lute desert, where even a man who had had all the 



MAN ALONE. 21 

advantages of society would be sadly put to his shifts, 
and might have no alternative save dying of want, we 
shall suppose that he is in a land of savage fertility 
and the means of fertility, — a land of streams of water, 
of plants, and of animals, — a land wherein there is 
"the fruit-tree bearing fruit, and the herb bearing 
seed, with cattle after their kind, and fowl to fly in 
the open firmament of heaven." All this we shall 
suppose, for all this might exist in nature, and with- 
out the previous labour of any other man ; but to go 
beyond this it would be unjust, and destructive to the 
argument. 

Here, then, on the one hand, is the man, fully 
qualified in his body and his mind for taking upon 
himself the dominion of the world ; and there, on the 
other hand, is the world, quite rich and ready for 
being taken possession of, and not another human 
being to dispute the possession with our original and 
independent candidate. What is the man to do? 
How is the possession to be taken ? 

These are questions which no man can answer in a 
proper and satisfactory manner, even hypothetically ; 
because no man can carry the analysis of his feelings 
backward to a period at which he was in such a state 
of independence, — there being, in fact, no such state 
as applicable to any human being. No one can deny 
that we have put this case fairly, in as far as both 
the man and the world are concerned, and indeed we 
have given the man a very large advantage, to which, 
in equity, he is not entitled. The impossibility of 
saving what the man would do in the case we have 



22 milton's ad am. 

put, amounts to a virtual admission that he owes 
every thing to society ; but, as the proper understand- 
ing of this case, hypothetical and incapable of descrip- 
tion as it is, lies at and supports the very foundation 
of our social duty and moral obligation to society, it 
may be proper to dwell a little longer upon it, even 
though it should serve no other purpose than deep- 
ening the impression of it on our own minds. 

Milton, in his delineation of Adam immediately on 
his creation, had the best opportunity of bringing out 
the truth of this case which has occurred to any 
writer, whether in poetry or in prose ; and Milton 
brought to the consideration of it powers which are 
seldom united in the same high degree in any man. 
He was the greatest scholar, the most acute and 
powerful reasoner, and out of all measure the most 
sublime poet of his age ; and taking all the three, he 
has never perhaps had an equal in any age. If Mil- 
ton did not succeed, therefore, we may safely say that 
it would be unwise in any other man to try. Let us, 
then, just take a glimpse at the way in which the Bard 
of Paradise manages the matter ; and as the passage 
is much too long for quotation, we shall merely take a 
line through it. 

The passage to which we chiefly allude is in 
book viii. of Paradise Lost, from verse 250 to verse 
566 inclusive ; and if the reader will examine this, he 
will find that Milton's Adam is not a newly-created 
man, who has come into the world in the same state 
of ignorance as we came into it ; but that he is an 
educated man, — a man already possessed of knowledge, 



milton's a dam. 23 

which could not possibly be obtained but by long ob- 
servation and experience in society. It is true that 
Milton, as a poet, was not strictly bound by the laws 
of philosophy ; but still, his first man could not have 
known and acted as he is represented to have done, 
without a direct miracle ; and if the fact of any thing 
of that kind is asserted, of course there is an end to 
our argument, as it would be unfit to set human phi- 
losophy in array against a miracle. A miracle is a 
matter, however, of the admission of which we ought 
to be very cautious, as it is one of the subterfuges of 
ignorance, which, in times of darkness and supersti- 
tion, plants creation all over with miraculous results, 
brought about by supernatural beings of some descrip- 
tion or other, — good or bad, according to the nature 
of what they do. 

Milton's Adam is really better versed in matters 
which, according to what we know as the only law of 
human nature, can be known only by observation and 
experience, than a very considerable portion of the 
grown-up men of the present day, and certainly far 
more so than any child at the time it begins its obser- 
vations ; and yet, according to the soundest judgment 
that we can form on the subject, children learn much 
by the experience of their own bodies, before they 
begin to notice the objects about them. 

The very instant that Adam became conscious that 
he was alive, he knew that he was lying upon herbs, 
and that these herbs were flowers ; — how much ex- 
perience must a child have before it can come to this 
knowledge without instruction from any one ? Also, 



24 milton's ad am is milton. 

Adam knew that he had been in a perspiration, and 
that the beams of the sun had dried up this perspira- 
tion ; and this evaporation is a matter about which 
physical philosophers are not quite agreed, even to 
this day ; so that, in sober philosophy, a man newly 
created could not of his own knowledge have had the 
least information about it. Then the landscape which 
he describes is as graphic as if he had been a close 
observer and warm admirer of nature for many years : 
and his description of the beasts and birds, though 
brief, is quite worthy of a naturalist. Not only this, 
— for Adam found himself in possession of language, 
which is a conventional matter, and can be obtained 
in no way but by a certain number of the human race 
agreeing to use the same sounds to express the same 
common meaning, as previously understood. Then 
he has a dream, too, and a vision ; and in the dream 
he is taken to the garden of Eden, and shown what 
he may eat and what not. But it would be a waste 
of time to pursue the analysis farther ; for the man 
here described is not a man who comes to take pos- 
session of the world with nothing to assist him but 
his natural powers,— he is a man of great education and 
acquired resource — Milton, in short, and not Adam. 
He is represented, in short, as a man, to find an equal 
to whom, even among those who have had the advan- 
tages of being born and educated in civilized society, 
we should have to cull the choice of the learned. 

We must, therefore, return to our original man, 
without the smallest assistance from the delineation of 
the Poet, who was either indisposed or unable to view 



THE REAL FIRST MAX. 52 

the case as it ought to be viewed, in the representa- 
tion of Man as entering upon the study and enjoy- 
ment of the world in his own unaided strength, and 
without a single example of experience to guide him. 
It is very likely that, by a man so circumstanced, the 
first painful sensation would be hunger, — and be it 
remembered that, from all that we can observe of 
mankind in those very early years, painful sensation 
is their chief inducement, if not their only induce- 
ment, to action of any kind. How he would go about 
the satisfying of his hunger, whether with a pumpkin 
or pebble, it is not easy to say, and it is just as dif- 
ficut to say whether his first essay to the quenching 
of his thirst would be by the water of the brook, or 
the rock over which that brook rippled in its course ; 
for, as yet, he has no knowledge of any substance, 
or of any quality of any substance. We cannot even 
say that he would go to school to the animals around 
him, and learn to eat and to drink from their ex- 
ample ; for, independently of a creature so omni- 
vorous as man making up his mind as to whether he 
should join the lion, the lamb, or the monkey, at 
breakfast, there is a previous question, namely, 
whether he should think of eating or drinking at all 
as the means of relieving the painful sensation. That 
he should see the animals eating and drinking would 
be no instruction to him ; for we do not know as an 
original fact that animals eat to satisfy hunger, or 
drink to quench thirst. That they do this, is an 
analogy founded on our own case ; and brought near 
to demonstration by much observation and long ex- 

III. D 



26 ORIGINAL IGNORANCE. 

perience ; but still not absolutely demonstrated as an 
independent fact resting upon its own evidence. In 
our lax modes of believing, and expressing ourselves 
on common occasions, these analogical deductions 
pass current as if they were established truths ; and 
we have no reason to doubt a good many of them, 
and this one among the number ; but still they are not 
demonstrated upon their own showing, as we demon- 
strate the simple fact that the animal does eat and 
drink, without any allusion to the purpose. 

There is no doubt, however, that our man would 
soon learn to eat and drink, and to know the sub- 
stances best suited for those purposes ; but he would 
not do even this much without many trials and errors 
in the way of gaining experience, just as we see all 
men — educated and uneducated — do, when they come 
to cases which are perfectly new to them, and have 
nobody to tell them how they are to proceed. 

In like manner there is no doubt that, in time, the 
man would learn the distinctions and the properties 
of things about him, but he would require a very long 
time ; and it is very doubtful whether, in the course of 
an ordinary life, he would advance so far as to bend a 
bow, or even to form a spear. Time and experience 
would, however, bring him to this length ; and the 
same process, repeated through many ages by many 
races of men coming into contact with each other, 
might bring Man up to the degree of intelligence and 
enjoyment which he at present possesses, in his most 
enlightened state ; but this is the progress of society, 
not of Man as an individual. 



man's natural limits. 27 

How far the individual might advance, in the ordi- 
nary term of human life, and in a country of average 
natural fertility, it is impossible for us to ascertain, 
for there is no actual record of the experiment, and it 
is one which we cannot possibly make for ourselves ; 
but, from the analogy, we have no reason to believe 
that he would get beyond the condition of the savage, 
in the very lowest state in which he was ever found 
by civilized man upon visiting a land of savages for 
the very first time. Indeed, by the analog}*, he would 
never get even their length • for they have all, to some 
extent or other, the benefit of society and of the suc- 
cession of ages. Thus, all the little arts and con- 
trivances which are found even among them are to be 
attributed to society, and not to the individual man ; 
and as all savages have a language, or jargon of some 
sort, in which they can communicate with each other, 
,it is highly probable that society must be formed, and 
a language agreed upon, invented, and made use of, 
before the very simplest contrivance of art is so much 
as thought of. 

Such, then, is as near an approximation as we can 
possibly make to what Man could do for himself, and 
independently altogether of the society of other men; 
and the amount of it is so very little, that we can 
scarcely imagine greater misery upon earth than the 
condition of the man who had this and no more. But 
we have taken the most favourable view of the case, — 
a view far more favourable than the average would 
warrant us in taking. We have supposed the man to 
be in the highest state of health and vigour, and to 



28 NATURAL CASUALTIES. 

continue in this state all the days of his life ; and this 
can be predicated of the average of men in no state 
of society with which we are acquainted. We must 
make allowance for sickness, and for the decay and 
decrepitude of fading life, which, upon the average, 
sooner overtakes men suffering privations than tem- 
perate men who are in advanced society, especially if 
their minds are so well cultivated, and so active, as to 
take the lead in their characters, and lift them above 
those gross indulgences of the body which, when the 
activity of the body begins to slacken, prove so often 
fatal to mindless men in easy circumstances. 

With all the statutory provisions, and all the chari- 
ties, public and private, of civilized society, those 
natural evils fall heavily on men who have no re- 
sources of their own, — so heavily, indeed, that the 
pressure of old age and sickness is often apparently 
far heavier than the pressure of guilt. But if this be 
the case where there is some statutory provision, some 
charity, and, generally speaking, a little sympathy in 
some quarter or other, which can soothe, if it is not 
able to relieve, what must be our feeling — we cannot 
say fancy, for no fancy can paint it — of the state of 
one who, under such circumstances, is alone in the 
world, and as destitute of resource and mental hope 
as he is of the means of physical relief? It is well 
that we cannot draw the picture even in imagination ; 
for the very feeling that there could be such a reality 
as this picture would represent, is horrible. 

Yet such is the condition to which one and all of us 
would have had to come, if death had not interfered 



LABOUR OF PREPARATION. 29 

to relieve us, had it not been for the circumstance of 
our being born, and educated, and living in society ; 
for which advantages we are solely indebted to society, 
without any means or merit, on our part, towards the 
procuring of them. That we live in England, and in 
the nineteenth century, are probably greater advan- 
tages than we could have obtained by living in any 
other country at any other time \ but we ourselves 
have not the slightest merit in either. A very large 
portion of the human race have been studying, aud 
planning, and executing, during the long period of 
some thousands of years, to make England what it is 
in the nineteenth century ; and assuredly, we who live 
in the nineteenth century, have no share whatever in 
the merit, whatever we may have in the enjoyment. 
We are, one and all, obligees to the full extent of the 
whole advantages that we derive from having been 
born, and for living, in a civilized country during an 
enlightened age, — at least what the majority of us 
have done, for ourselves or for anybody else, is so 
small, in comparison with what we have received, that 
it is not worth counting. It is true that they who 
prepared these advantages for us did not intend them 
for our good; but we have and enjoy them exactly the 
same as if the intention had been expressly for us, 
and therefore the obligation upon us is exactly the 
same. Among the men of the same age, we may have 
relative merit or demerit, according as that which we 
have discovered or done may be above or below the 
average of that which has been done by all who are 
in similar circumstances ; but still, whatever we may 

d 3 



30 THE PARTIES RELATED 

have done., even the most meritorious of us, is so little, 
in comparison with what we have received without any 
doing, that the position in which one and all of us 
stand is that of debtor to society, and debtor to an 
extent which we can never liquidate, so as to bring us 
up to an equality, far less place us upon any vantage 
ground of which we can boast. 

This is the proper understanding and feeling with 
which we ought to come to the examination of the 
relations which subsist between man as an individual, 
and that society of which he is a member ; and this 
ought to teach us that we must come with meekness 
and humility, and not as the headlong asserters of 
any claim of personal merit. But here there arises 
another preliminary question, which must be examined 
before we can rightly understand and apply the one 
which we have hitherto been considering : — 

Where are the parties between whom the relation 
is to be traced and the reciprocal duties adjusted? 
We can find the one party — Man, the individual — in 
our self, or in any other member of the race. But 
where shall we find the other party — that Society, 
between which and the individual man the relation is 
to be traced? The members of this society have 
lived in many countries and in all ages, and the 
majority of them, we may almost say the whole, are 
in their graves — mouldered, lost, even as memorials 
of what has once been ; so that they are incapable 
of entering into compact with us, or of receiving any 
service in gratitude at our hands. 

The men who are now alive and active around us 



AS MAX AND SOCIETY. 31 

are indeed our society, but they are not the society to 
which we are under so many obligations. All of 
them are in the same predicament with ourselves, in 
being under obligations to the very same society-, to 
that society- which is now, in as far as it was mortal, 
mingled with the common mass of material elements. 
They are of us, and we of them ; or rather the whole 
of us together form one temporary portion of that 
chain or succession of society which runs onward 
through all ages and generations, and the present 
portion of which is always under obligations to all 
that have gone before it. 

In this question of the primary and fundamental re- 
lation between Man and Society, — the very foundation 
upon which their mutual and reciprocal duties ought 
to be built, as their only sure foundation — we find we 
are in a curious position — a position to which we are 
rarely, if ever, driven in any other science. We wish to 
establish, as the basis of whatever we may have to con- 
clude respecting the matter, a general relation between 
Man in his individual character and capacity as the 
one party, and Society as the other party. AVe can, 
in part at least, bring Man to the comparison ; and 
we can also discover the relation — the only general 
relation, in as far as he is concerned — namely, that he 
is under very great obligations to society. But when 
w r e turn and seek the other element which is abso- 
lutely necessary to the making of the comparison in 
such a way as that we can deduce any logical con- 
clusion from it, we are unable to find that element. 
Man certainlv has to societv that relation which we 



32 DIFFICULTY OF THE QUESTION 

Lave examined at some length, but the society to 
which he has this relation does not exist. Therefore, 
we have no logical or satisfactory basis upon which 
we can establish any thing like a regular and philo- 
sophical science of u Man in Society." 

In none of the sciences of material nature, or the 
other branches of the science of Man, do we at the 
outset encounter any such perplexity as this. In 
studying the physical organization and adaptations of 
Man, for instance, he certainly appears an anomaly 
as compared with the other animated races; for 
though his adaptations are more numerous than those 
of any of them, there is a vagueness about them all, 
which renders it impossible for us to assign to Man 
any definite place in the scale of merely animated 
nature. But, when we take the whole of Man into 
consideration, and view him as consisting of a phy- 
sical and mortal, and an intellectual and immortal 
part, and consider that the body of Man is not 
organized so that it may take a place among the 
merely physical animals, but that its adaptation is 
two-fold — for its own maintenance as physical, and 
for the service of the mind as intellectual, the ap- 
parent anomaly vanishes, and Man appears, as he is 
in reality, the most elaborate, and at the same time 
the most perfect, of all the works of creation. In 
like manner, when we contemplate Man in his intel- 
lectual and immortal character, and his relations to 
the acquiring of knowledge, and the acting upon that 
knowledge for his well-being and improvement, we 
meet with no anomaly, nothing which in any way 



OF MAN IN SOCIETY. 33 

perplexes us. It is true that there are some points, 
such as the reciprocal action of the body and the 
mind, in the case of mental perception following 
bodily sensation, and of bodily action following mental 
affection, which we do not understand, and of course 
cannot explain ; but this incapacity of ours does not 
make the fact the less certain, or the performance of 
it the less beautiful. 

In the partial difficulty which is found in the re- 
ciprocal action of the body and mind upon each other, 
we can in so far see why there should be a total 
difficulty in the relation of Man and Society. In 
comparing the body and mind with a view to find out 
the relation between them upon which their reciprocal 
action depends, we find that they are not subjects 
capable of logical or philosophical comparison. The 
body is material and mortal, the mind is immaterial 
and immortal ; and thus the two have no property in 
common, in terms of which they can be compared. In 
this case, therefore, we are unable to obtain any 
relation which can be made the basis of knowledge, 
because the two elements are not in their nature 
capable of comparison, though each of them singly 
may be made the subject of knowledge, to any extent 
we may carry our rational examination of it. In the 
ease of Man and Society, the elements are of the same 
kind; and the relation on the part of one of them 
can be known, but we cannot bring the other one to 
the comparison ; and therefore we fail in fully under- 
standing both the reciprocity and the result. 

In the elementary moral relations of Man, also, 



84 ILLUSTRATION. 

whether in the high and solemn relations in which, 
as an immortal and responsible being, he stands to 
his God, or in that which he stands to his own happi- 
ness, as a moral and immortal being, we have some 
foundation on which to rest our inquiries. God and 
Man have the element of eternal future existence, and 
they are both spiritual beings, neither of them di- 
rectly apparent to the senses of the human body. 
They are known from their works, — God as a Being 
infinite in every attribute of goodness and greatness ; 
and Man as a being of very limited and erring powers. 
God as self-existent from all eternity, and the Maker 
of all that exists or that can exist ; and Man as the 
creature of God's making, owing his being and all 
else to the love and gracious bounty of his Maker. 
God is omniscient, possessed of all knowledge through 
infinite extent, from and to all eternity ; and there- 
fore all His laws, and the law of man's nature among 
the rest, are infinitely holy, just, and good. Man has 
no knowledge but what he acquires by his limited 
powers of observation and of thought, and therefore 
he cannot, of his own strength, keep the law of his 
God ; but that God, in mercy to the frailty and falli- 
bility of Man, has provided the means of pardon for 
offences, according to certain conditions of a gracious 
covenant which He himself has seen meet to reveal. 
These are wide differences certainly, infinitely wide in 
our natural consideration of them; but revelation 
comes in where human reason and philosophy fail, 
and Man, naturally estranged from his Maker, is 
brought near by the gracious goodness of that Maker 



LAWS ARE NOT PHILOSOPHICAL. 35 

in the new covenant. Therefore, by means of revel- 
ation, the relation between God and Man, which other- 
wise rises far above the reach of all human philosophy, 
is made plain to persons of ordinary understanding. 

In the case of the imperfection which arises in 
the relation between Man and society, there is no 
such assistance. All the men who are, at any time, 
living in society, are in the same state upon the 
general principle ; and, therefore, upon that principle, 
— the only one which can be made the basis of 
reasoning, — no man has an original right to demand, 
and none has a right of this kind to enforce, com- 
pliance on the part of another. Therefore, all the 
laws, and regulations, and customs, and observances, 
which are made for the pointing out of the reciprocal 
duties of Man and the immediately existing society of 
which he is a member, are conventional, made by 
men for their mutual advantage, in the same way as 
language is made for mutual intercourse. Like 
language, these differ in different countries and in 
different ages ; and although some may be more ad- 
vantageous to the majority of the people, or for the 
general welfare and improvement, there is not, for 
the reason that we have stated, any whole code, or 
even any single enactment of human legislature, which 
rests upon a philosophical basis, a basis of justice and 
equity, as between the aggregate of the society and 
every individual member of it. TVe must not blame 
the framers of any one of the enactments for this, for 
it is the necessary consequence of the want of know r - 
ledge of a general law of reciprocity between Man 



36 ALL LAW IS EXPEDIENCE. 

and society ; but, at all events, it should make those 
who have the means a little careful how they do 
legislate. - 

In all probability, we shall have occasion, in some 
future chapter, to enter a little into the details of 
those human regulations which define or enforce 
certain lines of conduct upon Man in society, both 
as regards the merely temporal part of the business, 
and as regards the connection of religion with civil 
government, — a connection which is as completely 
human and conventional, and therefore, in reason and 
philosophy, as foundationless, as that merely temporal 
regulation of which it forms part. But, in the mean- 
time, and as apparently essential to our entering upon 
the main subject without mistake or prejudice one 
way or the other, it is important to know how utterly 
foundationless these conventional matters are in a 
philosophical point of view, however necessary they 
may be for practical order and prosperity in matters 
in which mankind have no well-established logical 
principles to guide them. 

We make these remarks with no desire to under- 
value human legislature, or the union of human 
regulations with the formal or ceremonial part of 
religion ; for if, as we know the truth to be, there is 
no philosophical foundation to be had, it would be 
very obvious injustice to blame those who frame 
these matters for not having it. There is one practical 
circumstance, however, which must not be overlooked, 
as it tends very forcibly to corroborate, by evidence, 
that truth which we have deduced from first principles. 



POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS DISPUTES. 6/ 

It is the following ; and it is well worthy of the 
serious attention of every one who wishes to under- 
stand the foundations upon which the structure of 
civil society rests. 

Disputes upon political subjects, and upon the 
human adjuncts to even the Christian religion, are 
more frequent, and earned on with less reason and 
temper, than disputes upon any other subjects what- 
soever. There are disputes upon many other subjects, 
but such are, in general, terminable, and they do not 
continue, and disturb the peace, and mar the happi- 
ness, and retard the progress of society, unless they 
get entangled in the one or the other of these. And 
why do disputes on subjects of science, of art, or of 
general philosophy, generally terminate, and are carried 
onward to their conclusion in a temperate manner ? 
Clearly for this reason, — that there is in each and all 
of them some fixed principle to which the matter at 
issue between the disputants can be brought ; and 
when they once come to see and understand this 
principle properly, and can institute a fail* comparison 
between it and the opinions which they have held 
during the dispute, the one who was in the wrong is 
compelled, of his own conviction, to give way to the 
truth as established by the appeal to this standard. Or 
if, as is often the case, — for though men who know that 
they are in the right adhere firmly to it, they never 
bring it into discredit by wrangling and disputation, 
— they are both in the wrong, if they can come to 
the established principle, that sets them both right ; 

III. E 



38 RANCOUR OF POLITICAL 

and thus they make mutual concessions, and are both 
wiser men than they were before. 

But political and religious disputes are never carried 
on with temper, neither do they come to a rational 
termination in either of these ways. The more that 
such disputants argue the more they disagree ; and 
whether their controversy is carried on orally or in 
writing, they make use of language so intemperate as 
to convince any man who is in his sober senses that 
both parties must be in the wrong. Further to prove 
the truth of this, it is matter of common observation, 
that the longer any political or religious dispute or 
argument is protracted, the parties not only get the 
more angry, but they get the wider apart from each 
other, so that that which at the outset appeared to be 
a mere difference of opinion, becomes in the end a 
most rancourous feud. 

Nor does it, in the one kind or in the other, stop 
at the most intemperate and unseemly language 
which one human being, even of the lowest moral 
feeling and the rudest class, can bestow upon another ; 
for, even in men who, when they are not agitated by 
these most important subjects, are accounted wise 
and good, it stirs up the very worst passions that 
could by possibility actuate the very dregs of society, 
when they are in the frenzied act of committing the 
most atrocious crimes. No matter for the most inti- 
mate relationships — the dearest bonds of society, as 
they are accounted among rational men. By these 
unseemly disputes, brother is set in rancourous array 



AXD RELIGIOUS DISPUTES. 39 

against brother, parent against child, child against 
parent, and so on, till all that is good and estimable in 
society is destroyed. 

If the matter were to stop with any attempt to 
refute an argument or controvert an opinion, in the 
only way in which that can be done, that is, by words, 
be the words of what tenor soever, one might be, in 
some sort, reconciled to it, however repugnant to good 
taste, and that feeling which, as common debtors to the 
goodness of God, and the kindness which antecedent 
society has bestowed upon them, mankind ought, in 
common decency, to have for each other ; — if it were 
to stop here, one might charitably cast about to make 
excuses for it. But when we find that, upon such 
grounds, mankind go openly about to do each other 
every temporal injury which the law of the society 
whereof they are members will allow ; and not only 
this, but, if they have the power of the law in their 
hand, they convert that which ought to be the safety 
of all men into the means of vengeance and death, by 
the most excruciating tortures against those who are 
guilty of no offence whatsoever, save that of differing 
from their persecutors on some point of politics or 
religion, which is of no earthly consequence to their 
welfare one way or the other. 

These are no fanciful delineations, introduced for 
the purpose of effect, but plain though melancholy 
truths, which make up the blackest pages of the human 
annals, and the natural enormity of which no words 
can heighten ; and they have not been confined to one 
party or one set of opinionists, but have been per- 



40 PROBABLE CAUSE 

petrated by those who have been diametrically op- 
posed to each other upon the points at issue, which 
points, be it remembered, have never been of very 
great importance, or very closely connected with the 
moral worth or the real welfare of human beings, one 
way or another. 

There is no doubt that the worldly views of man- 
kind, and the very worst means which the most depraved 
of mankind can by possibility put in practice for the 
furtherance and accomplishment of those views, have 
mingled in these disputes — both kinds of them — and 
made their enormities more inhuman and revolting. 
But still the question arises, " Why should political 
and religious disputes be the only ones with which 
such enormities are blended ? " Political institutions 
and proceedings profess to be established and carried 
on solely for the temporal good of mankind — not of 
certain individuals, but of the whole of societies and 
nations ; and the political, or human-institution ad- 
juncts of religion have, in all their varied forms, 
been attached to it for the pretended purpose of 
rendering the spiritual and essential part more effec- 
tive in promoting the eternal welfare of mankind. Yes, 
the sword has been drawn, the dungeon has been 
crowded, the torture has been instituted, and the 
faggot has been kindled, ail for the glory of the God 
of mercy, and the salvation of the souls of men ! 

We ask again, to what strange anomaly these things, 
so outrageous to all the ordinary principles of human 
nature, and so impiously in violation of all that has 
been revealed by the God of Heaven, could or can be 



OF HOLY RANCOUR. 



41 



owing? And the only answer that we can find is, 
that, in these matters, there is no fixed or general 
principle to which mankind can refer as the standard 
of right and wrong. 

Then, if there is no human standard attained or 
attainable, to which we can with reason make 
an ultimate appeal in these matters, why should 
we not seek help where alone it is to be found? 
If the Almighty saw meet of his own free grace to 
send his only-begotten Son into the world to make an 
atonement for our sins, and deliver us from that 
eternal punishment which one and all of us have in- 
curred, and must, but for the tender mercy of our 
God, undergo, why not adopt towards each other that 
rule of intercourse which He recommended : — " A 
new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one 
another?" This is the commandment of Him who 
is equally omnipotent to pardon and to punish ; and 
how can we expect to escape the full measure of His 
vengeance if we fail to obey it? In all ordinary 
matters in which our misunderstandings can be con- 
ducted with reason, and brought to a standard of 
human judgment — as they can be in common science, 
the arts, and the simple and equitable transactions of 
man with man, we do not need to call in the aid of 
this beautiful precept. But where we have no human 
standard, as we have none in the conventional regula- 
tions of society, we ought never to lose sight of this. 
We are all equally indebted to the free grace of our 
God for pardon and mercy, to say nothing of the debt 
which we owe for our simple existence ; and we are 

e 3 



42 STATE OF 

all indebted to that society to which we can make no 
return, for all the comforts and distinctions which 
we have and enjoy as members of civilized society : 
and, as we are all, with the exception of accidental 
difference, in which we have no merit, exactly in the 
same predicament ; surely the easiest, as well as the 
most natural line of conduct which we can adopt, is 
to obey the commandment of Him to whom we owe 
every thing, by " loving one another ? " 

If the reader has attended, with understanding, and 
with a desire to know and to follow the truth (for 
both are necessary) to the strain of argument in these 
preliminary remarks, which we have endeavoured to 
make as plain as possible, he must be aware that 
there is not to be obtained from the study of man 
and of society any fundamental law, according to 
which these reciprocal duties to each other can be 
regulated : and, therefore, it behoves us to take this 
" law of laws," which was made known and enforced 
by God himself, as the only sure foundation upon 
which we can build, and the only guide that will keep 
us from iniquity and error. 

Keeping this constantly in view, we may proceed 
with our inquiry, only it must be gone about with much 
mildness and humility, as compared with the course 
which we might follow in any matter in which we 
had a foundation of our own. This inquiry will 
naturally consists of three principal parts : first, a brief 
outline of the leading duties which Man and Society 
mutually and respectively owe to each other ; secondly, 
the means by which Man, in his own nature as an 



THE ARGUMENT. 43 

individual, may either perform those duties, or fall 
short or err in the performance of them ; and, thirdly, 
those laws and regulations of society by which Man 
is understood to be encouraged and protected in the 
performance of his duty, and repressed and warned, 
and, if need be, punished, if he deviates from it. On 
the first of these we shall not enter into any minute 
particulars ; and thus it will not detain us long ; the 
second is of much more importance, and will require 
a little more consideration; and with the third we 
shall deal as fairly and tenderly as possible. 



44 



CHAPTER II. 

RECIPROCAL DUTIES OF MAN AND SOCIETY. 

As every man who is born, or who lives in society of 
any kind, however rude, and in a station in that so- 
ciety however humble, enjoys, in consequence of 
being so born and so living, some advantages which 
he otherwise could not, by possibility, have enjoyed; 
so every man, let him be who and what he may, is 
naturally under an obligation for all the advantages 
which he thus possesses. If he has the honest and 
independent feeling of a man in him, — if he is worthy 
of the place which he holds in society, whatever that 
place may be — he will feel the tie of this obligation 
upon him, and will desire to act upon the feeling, and 
not merely desire, but use all diligence in putting the 
desire into execution, according to the best of his 
ability. 

Although, as we have shown, there is no direct re- 
lation to which the reciprocal duties of Man and So- 
ciety can be referred, yet, what with religion, what 
with knowledge, what with an inherent love of society, 
and a virtuous feeling towards it — which seems to be 
also inherent in human nature unless it is corrupted 



DUTY TO GOD. 45 

by vice, there seems to be enough to guide us in 
this matter, unless we suffer ourselves to fall into 
wranglings and disputes ; and if we do so, we destroy 
the moral and practical effects of these secondary re- 
lations, and foster that unmanly and unsocial spirit, 
of the effects of which we took some slight notice in 
the preceding chapter. 

It must be allowed that the law of God — the rela- 
tion in which we stand to that Almighty Being as our 
Creator, as the free-will bestower of all our powers and 
feelings, and of all the means of their exercise and 
enjoyment, and as our deliverer from that eternal suf- 
fering and misery to which, without his gracious inter- 
ference, we are obnoxious by the very constitution of 
our nature, without the slightest power or means of 
our own by which we can either escape from it or 
mitigate its severity ; — it must be allowed that this is 
the most powerful stimulus and inducement to us, 
both in the knowledge of our duty to society and in 
the performance of it. So much is this the case, as 
may be theoretically understood from the relation 
itself, and practically confirmed by an examination of 
the conduct of mankind, that if we do not make our 
duty to God the grand and primary foundation of our 
duties to society, then those duties can neither be 
rightly understood, nor performed with the proper 
feeling and in the proper manner. The very nature 
of this most powerful, this indissoluble and eternal 
obligation, which is upon every human being, and 
which is equally binding upon him in its present 
strength, and in its future and eternal consequences, 



46 REAL NATURE OF 

whether he understands it or not, — the very nature of 
this duty points out where alone it can be paid ; and 
the Word of God himself is explicit as to the means 
and the mode of performing it : — " Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy soul, with all thy 
strength, and with all thy mind," are the express and 
very intelligible words in which our duty to God is 
set forth in the volume of inspiration. But, in the 
same record of everlasting truth, we are expressly 
told that " Man cannot be serviceable to God, as one 
man is serviceable to another." We can give him no 
gifts, make no sacrifices to him, and render to him no 
honours, any one of which can in the slightest de- 
gree add to a single attribute of his ; for all the divine 
attributes are in themselves infinite, and therefore in- 
capable of increase. It is true, that, by reverential 
feelings towards the Almighty, by making our suppli- 
cations to him, and by rendering thanksgiving and 
praise to him for his great goodness, we may produce 
the most beneficial effects upon our own feelings and 
emotions, and those effects may lead to the happiest 
consequences, as concerns both our own welfare and 
that of others. We may thus kindle the flame of our 
own devotion with a live coal from the altar of our 
God, but we can in nowise increase the radiance of 
the glory there ; and if we dare to make the attempt, 
we so far, to our own condemnation, substitute a dumb 
idol for the living God, and turn his holy religion into 
a mere idolatry. Hence it is that the express com- 
mandment that we shall love our God is immediately 
followed by that application which regulates the prac- 



OUR DUTY TO GOD. 47 

tice, and which forms the only sure basis upon which 
the knowledge of our duty to society, and the right 
desire of performing that duty, can be founded : — 
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself." The 
commandment to us is not given in any vague and 
hypothetical manner, whereby we might be enabled to 
alter it by any glosses of our own, so that we might 
adapt it to our purposes, and each man interpret the 
law according to the imagination of his own heart. 
" As thyself" is a standard which every man has within 
him, and to which he can at all times refer, without 
difficulty and without doubt or hesitation ; and yet, 
simple and explicit as it is, it meets every case that 
can by possibility arise. 

In order to show with what beauty of perfection the 
statutes of the Gospel are adapted to the condition of 
Man, it may not be amiss just to glance at the appli- 
cation here. As has been attempted to be illus- 
trated — it requires no original showing, as it cannot 
but be felt — every individual of the human race stands 
exactly in the same predicament with regard to so- 
ciety, — they are brothers in obligation to that society 
which has gone before them ; and the commandment 
is such as naturally, and almost necessarily, arises out 
of this equality of state, — they are to have perfectly 
equal and reciprocal kindness for each other. 

But there is another view of the divine law, — that 
is, of the feeling of the obligation which we are under 
to our God, which appears to be inherent in our 
nature, until — as may happen in the case of many of 
our kindly feelings— it shall be weakened and obscured 



48 INFANT DISPLAY OF 

by vicious practices. This feeling is antecedent to that 
which arises out of religious knowledge, and is of the 
greatest service to us while we are too young for being 
governed or directed by that. As it is a mere feeling, 
and not a matter of reasoning or understanding, we 
cannot define it in express terms, but must arrive at 
the knowledge of it from circumstances. Perhaps one 
of the best general expressions that we have for it is, 
that " We are glad we are alive." In early life, this 
gladness is constant with us, excepting in those mo- 
ments of pain or irritation which are expressed at once, 
while the frame is so delicately sensitive as it is then. 
But if the expressions of uneasiness are always instant 
upon the uneasy sensation, the " gladness of life " soon 
returns, and the child laughs while its eyes are still 
suffused with the tears of its keen but evanescent 
sorrow. 

Then, at this young age, there is fondness for and 
delight in everything; and if there has not been— 
which, by the way, is very difficult to be avoided — 
something wrong in the management of it, the child 
loves everybody, and indeed everything that comes 
within the range of its observation. This love can be 
accounted for upon no principle of selfish gratification, 
and not wholly upon that of the pleasure of obtaining 
knowledge. The last is a natural pleasure, and one 
of so high an order, and so beneficial in its effects 
on the whole character and conduct, not at the time 
merely, but through life, that if we could be duly im- 
pressed with the truth of it, we should be careful never 
to repress it in the manner which is sometimes done. 



DUTY TO GOD. 49 

To watch a healthy child which has been much kept 
in the house, when left to itself upon some grassy 
glade, enamelled with wild-flowers, gay with butter- 
flies, and melodious with the hum of insects, while 
gentle winds are stirring the sprays around, and the 
birds are in alternate flight and song, — to watch such 
a child, in such a situation, is a treat in the way of 
feeling, and scarcely less so in that of instruction. 
There is a perfection of gladness — a rioting in de- 
light — which has certainly no parallel in after-life, 
even in the cases of those who preserve the purity of 
their feelings with the greatest solicitude and success. 
It is true that this delight of the child among the 
fresh novelties of nature is objectless, according to 
our common views of the matter, as it tends not to 
the cramming of any appetite or the earning of a 
penny; but, upon careful examination, the child will be 
found to be much more in the way of fulfilling the great 
law of love to society than he who is hedging and 
cozening every farthing with the intention of endow- 
ing an hospital or building a church with the proceeds 
— after he himself can enjoy it no longer. The child is 
exercising, and thereby cultivating, the feeling of love; 
and if the feeling is duly cultivated, the application 
will be made in good time : whereas, if the feeling is 
neglected, there can be no application; and thus, 
though the party may have any degree of self-love — 
that spurious kind which means love of the appetites, 
and not unfrequently of the abuse of self — he can 
have no love for his neighbour, as he is destitute of 
the sole means by which that can exist. 

III. F 



50 PROGRESSIVE DISPLAYS 

As years roll on, and the volume of knowledge in- 
creases to such an extent as that the individual can 
form some estimate of his own powers, and the almost 
endless variety of subjects and ways for their gratifi- 
cation, he feels a stronger and a more definite grati- 
tude, — a love of creation, and of all the works and 
ways of creation ; and the friendships which he forms, 
the happy hours which he spends with his associates 
in this admiration, attach him to society with a bond 
which is not easily broken. It is true that, at all 
times, and especially at the time to which we are 
alluding, there are dangers to be avoided, and great 
care is necessary in the avoiding of them : but we are 
not now speaking of the errors into which Man may 
fall or may be betrayed, — we are speaking of what 
could and what would be the case with every man, if 
matters were conducted as they ought to be. 

Then, again, in the various studies, labours, and 
occupations upon which Man enters, as preparatory 
for the business of life, but are no part of that busi- 
ness, he meets with so many means of help which 
have been contrived and prepared as for him, that he 
cannot, if his natural feelings have not been destroyed, 
refrain from feeling that gratitude — that obligation to 
society, to which we have made so frequent allusion. 
Say that it is merely the learning of some handicraft 
trade : he finds so many tools prepared for the different 
operations of that trade, and each of them so well 
calculated for its intended purpose, that he cannot 
help being struck with the vast advantages which the 
contrivers and preparers of those tools have conferred 



OF DUTY TO GOD. 51 

upon him individually, and how helpless and miserable 
he would have been, if those things had not been pre- 
pared for his use. 

If his range is a little higher than this, and he is led 
to examine and contemplate the resources of science 
and of the more general arts, he will feel the obliga- 
tion still more. Even in so simple matters as the 
elements of geometry and algebra, the student feels 
a wonderful exultation and elevation, both of mind 
and of character, when he knows the extent of the 
new powers with which these matters have armed 
him ; and this very feeling cannot but put him in a 
more happy frame of mind, — make him more in love 
with himself, with nature, with science, and with so- 
ciety. The additional power which is given to the eye 
by means of a telescope or a microscope, produces a 
wonderful impression the first time that such an in- 
strument is seen ; and as the fact here is at once pal- 
pable to the sight, without any process of reasoning, 
the effect is produced upon the most ignorant rustic 
even more forcibly perhaps than upon one who has 
more knowledge. All sorts of moving machinery, 
which are put in motion by other powers than that of 
living animals, produce strong impressions the first 
time that they are seen. The effects of animal power 
we do not admire so much, because it has a very close 
resemblance to the mechanical use of our own body in 
the drudgery of mere labour — the occupation in which, 
generally speaking, all mankind have the least plea- 
sure, and to which all have a natural aversion, the 
instant that they can do anything better. It is true 



52 NATURAL DUTY 

that, if there is a considerable degree of contrivance 
and ingenuity required in the performance of the 
labour, the irksomeness is, to a very considerable ex- 
tent, taken off; but then the pleasurable feeling which 
accompanies the mental part of the work is that which 
sweetens labour in such cases. 

There is one little circumstance connected with this 
natural aversion to the performance of mere me- 
chanical or bodily drudgery, which is not unworthy 
of our attention, as it is one of our natural incentives 
to the performance of our duty to society. If this 
disposition takes the alternative of idleness as a relief 
from bodily drudgery, then of course it is bad, and 
shows that the party has been vitiated by evil treat- 
ment, bad example, or neglect ; but we may con- 
fidently say that when this takes place, the natural 
disposition of the party has been injured by some 
means or other. Idleness is no natural propensity 
of mankind ; for when they are too young for being 
tainted by the examples of the worthless they are all 
activity, and always in motion in some way or other 
unless they are asleep. That this is the natural dis- 
position, every one who has been in even the slightest 
degree an observer must admit; and it would be 
most unjust to human nature, and most destructive of 
the true philosophy of it, to found any argument upon 
its perversion. Idleness, whether of the body or 
of the mind, is " the refuge of the destitute ;" and 
surely that is not the place in which to find the real 
character of human beings. 

The natural and important, we may say highly 



OF MENTAL ACTIVITY. 53 

beneficial aversion to the mere mindless drudgery of 
the body, is the desire of mental occupation; and 
when, at an early age, children are doomed to 
drudgery of this kind, there is always pain and re- 
volt upon their part, whether they have the means of 
showing it or not ; and if some innocent mental occu- 
pation is not afforded, meanness and vice — a total 
prostration of all that is estimable in human nature 
— is the inevitable consequence. This is the reason 
why, in many of our manufacturing districts where 
the occupation of the man or the boy is hardly more 
mental than that of the machine which he attends, 
the human character is so wanting in all its better 
elements. The parties have no means of thinking ; 
and, therefore, they have no fixed opinions grounded 
upon principle. Hence, the very slightest cause of 
animosity — or rather the first stirring of it, for there 
is seldom any cause at all, and never one of such a 
nature as to produce tumult, — they are thrown into a 
state of perfect anarchy ; and devastation and death 
are often produced by that which, when examined, 
turns out to be nothing at all — but the simple though 
melancholy fact that a certain number of human 
beings have been so placed and occupied in society 
that they have no mental speculations, and are inca- 
pable of forming a rational opinion upon any subject. 
That this should be the case is, in some way or 
other, a breach of duty towards these persons, on the 
part of some portion of the rest of society ; but it is 
one of those breaches which are more easily pointed 
out than healed ; and at all events it is in no degree 

f 3 



54 AGITATION AND 

to be bettered by stirring up the turbulent passions of 
those who suffer by it. " Agitation ** may suit the 
purposes of a political jobber, who traffics in the hap- 
piness and feelings of mankind for the furtherance of 
his own gain or glory ; but it can have no place in 
the philosophical consideration of Man or Society. 
To afford to every man the means of as much mental 
developement as shall save him from this lowest 
state of human degradation — this fertile source of 
every private crime and every public mischief, is cer- 
tainly a duty which Society owes to all its members, 
or, which is the same thing, to itself; but how this is 
to be accomplished is another matter. One thing is 
certain,— that there is a natural disposition in men to 
mental occupation, which, if cherished ever so little, 
instead of being checked and extinguished, would do 
this, far more effectually than any statutory enactment, 
which, judging from what one sees, would be very apt 
to make matters worse. 

This desire of mental occupation, it will be under- 
stood, is one of the natural means which Man uses 
for the purposes of doing his duty to society ; and this 
without any plan or thought, on his part, about the 
matter. Man feels that he is mind as well as body ; 
and, therefore, he makes an effort to bring both to 
the service of society. 

In these desultory remarks there will be found the 
principal elements of the grand or general stimuli 
which Man has to the knowledge and the performance 
of his social duties ; and upon such a case we cannot 
venture to introduce any detail or individual example, 



ITS CORRECTIVE. 55 

as the case of every man rests so much on its own 
peculiarities, that it cannot be applied with perfect 
accuracy even to that of one other individual. After 
noticing the inducements, the next point is, What are 
the duties themselves that Man owes to Society, and 
will be unjust to Society if he does not perform ? 

In the first place, every man is a burden upon 
society — an expense to it in some way or other, before 
he is capable of performing any duty whatever ; and, 
in equity, he is bound to make the best return that 
he can for this, and to do it with a willing and cor- 
dial heart, inasmuch as he incurred the obligation, 
not only without any merit on his part, but when he 
was incapable of asking it in any other way than by 
simple signs of pain and suffering. It may be said 
that the obligation here is not to society, but to the 
parents of the individual, or to whoever might have 
taken care of him during his nonage. But that 
is not a correct view of the case, because society must, 
by some means or other, have enabled the parents or 
others to perform this service. Nor must it be 
pleaded that they did this of their own exertions or 
of their hereditary possessions ; for where are exer- 
tions to be productive, and where are possessions to 
be acquired, but in society, and by the means of that 
society? Besides, what do we mean by society as 
that to which individual man is bound in the per-^ 
formance of certain duties ? Is it the persons whom 
the party knows and has intercourse with, or those 
whom he has never known or seen ? Not the latter, 
surely ; for although we owed them ever so much, we 



56 WHAT SOCIETY IS. 

have no possible means of discharging the obligation. 
It is by no means unlikely that the present in- 
habitants of England, of what race or mixture of 
races soever they may have come, are all indebted to 
Julius Caesar for having invaded the country, and there- 
by been the means of introducing some of the Roman 
arts and improvements; and there was a time of 
ignorance and superstition when, on account of these 
matters, or simply on account of his being the instru- 
ment in destroying a number of cities, and causing 
many men to be slain, Julius Caesar would have been 
worshipped as a demi-god after his death ; but, in 
the present enlightened age, no man would be fool 
enough even to think of any duty he could perform 
to Julius Caesar. 

Society, to one and all of us, means those that we 
know and are connected with, and no more ; and if a 
child shall know only its parents, then its duty to 
society is confined to those parents ; and the social 
duty gets wider in the range of its application, just as 
the number of those with whom the party is acquainted 
and connected extends; but, in all cases, a duty to 
an unknown party is merely an ideal duty, which 
may be spoken of, but which never can by possibility 
be performed. There are not a few of mankind who 
talk largely about the performance of these ideal 
duties ; and who, in the abundance of their speech 
about them, slur over the real duties which they ought 
to perform. 

The primary obligation which one and all of us 
are under in tins way is, that of having had a body and 



PRIMARY OBLIGATION. 57 

mind preserved for us during a period when we our- 
selves were incapable of doing any thing for their 
preservation. Besides this, there are many matters 
of detail, occurring from personal and local circum- 
stances ', but these belong to the several individual 
cases, and are not admissible into the general argu- 
ment. This obligation gives rise to a number of 
emotions or feelings, which we may notice hereafter, 
such as love of country, love of one's native country or 
town, love of family, love of dress, love of station and 
profession, and a number of others. These are all 
branches of the general feeling of obligation, and as 
there is something of the nature of gratitude in them 
all, they tend, on the whole, to elevate the character ; 
only they are all liable to be abused, and some of them 
are much more so than others. 

As that for which all of us, without any exception 
or distinction, are under this primary obligation, is the 
possession of a body and mind, both capable of receiv- 
ing certain training or instruction, or education in 
the case of the mind, and capable also of performing 
certain operations, if properly trained for them, which 
operations are useful to ourselves and to others, — the 
primary duty to society arising out of this primary 
obligation, is, to make our bodies and our minds as 
capable of useful application as possible. If we neglect 
this preparation for our duty, and it is also the pre- 
paration for our own happiness, — if we neglect this in 
that young stage of our lives, when, for various rea- 
sons, it can be best and most easily acquired, we 
are guilty of an offence against society, and even 



58 THE OBLIGATION IS ON US. 

against ourselves, which we cannot replace at any 
subsequent period. 

This is a matter, too, upon which we must be very 
much upon our guard against subterfuges. It will 
not do for us to say that our parents or guardians 
neglected our education, that there were no schools 
in the locality, that the teachers we were under were 
incompetent, or any thing of a similar kind. For, no 
matter what may be the cause of our inferiority, 
either in bodily dexterity or in mental sagacity, — the 
effect of it upon our own happiness and our useful- 
ness in society is exactly the same, whatever may be 
the cause. Independently of this, the excuses which 
we are in the habit of setting up, either for the awk- 
wardness of our bodies or the ignorance of our minds, 
are seldom of a nature that can be rationally sustained. 
It is not the performance of feats of dexterity, or 
profound knowledge of abstract science, which is re- 
quired of the majority of us, or indeed of any of us, 
as the means of discharging our duty to society, and 
to ourselves. It depends upon the event — upon what 
we shall be required to do, whether these matters shall 
be necessary for us or not. But there is a ready 
hand and a sagacious mind which all of us ought to 
possess, and the possession of which does not in- 
volve the necessity of much gymnastic training, or 
book learning. On the other hand, the very best part 
of it may be acquired by any body and without any 
formal training or teaching, and it may be acquired 
without any measured time set apart for the purpose. 

There is not a more absurd or mischievous notion 



EDUCATION IS PRACTICAL. 59 

afloat in society than that we must forego either some 
labour or some enjoyment, in order to insure the 
proper cultivation and management either of our 
hands or our heads ; for the fact is that our employ- 
ments and our pastimes, if we attend rightly to them, 
are the very best means for the accomplishment of 
both ; and if we were always in the habit of attend- 
ing to what we do, and how we do it, very little more 
education, either of the body or of the mind, would 
be necessary. In some of what may be regarded as 
the most arduous and most extensively useful, and, 
therefore, the highest occupations of human life, actual 
practice is the school, and there is no other of very 
much consequence. The very best of our civil 
engineers, and the inventors or improvers of our 
most valuable machinery, have all learned the way 
to eminence in the practice of their callings, and by 
the very simple and obvious means of attending to 
that which was passing through their hands at the 
time. Our admirals and generals who rank the highest 
in fame and in merit, have one and all been bred in 
the fleet and the camp. Our physicians and lawyers 
attain eminence only by long and assiduous practice ; 
and our senators — such of them as have been good 
for any thing beyond a mere oratorical display, which 
might or might not have bearing upon the point 
at issue — have all been trained by actual practice in 
the senate-house. If we were to examine the whole 
range of society, we should find the case to be every 
where the same, — attention to that which is practically 
done for a useful purpose, being always of far greater 



60 SACRED COMPENSATIONS. 

value than any amount of mere scholar-craft that can 
be brought to the subject. Nor is it difficult to see 
how this must be the case. The man who has paid 
long and due attention to mere scholastic subjects, 
whether scientific or literary, with little or no reference 
to the practical uses of those subjects in society, is 
very apt to take up a very silly and a very mischievous 
prejudice, of which he finds it difficult to free himself, 
however much he may be inclined to do so. There 
is apt — not necessarily nor always — to be a false pride 
about these matters, founded upon the very ridiculous 
but not unfrequent blunders of confounding means 
with ends — much in the same way as some sects of 
religionists, who, in love of favourite sins, go about 
to make a re-change of faith compensate for a de- 
ficiency of good works, and by believing what is 
not true, console themselves with the notion that they 
have compensated for the doing of that which is not 
right. Believing more than the truth is certainly a 
sacrifice in its way ; but it does not in justice belong 
to the catalogue of acceptable sacrifices. It is much the 
same with the not uncommon blunder on the subject 
of scholastic acquirements : the parties fancy that 
these will make up for practical incapacity, — in the 
which they are woefully mistaken. 

The fact that every man is naturally bound to 
educate, prepare, and discipline both his body and 
his mind in such manner and to such extent as that 
they may be singly or jointly of the most efficient 
advantage both to himself and to society, is necessarily 
followed by another obligation, upon which, indeed, 



SECOND OBLIGATION. 61 

the whole merit and value of that which has been 
noticed depends : — The most efficient body and mind 
of which we can have any notion, can be of no possible 
use hereafter — that is, in a time not yet come to 
pass — to that society of which the man may be 
a member, or to any society or for any purpose 
whatsoever. Therefore, the man who is to discharge 
aright that duty which every man owes to society, 
on account of the simple fact of being supported by 
its care in his infancy, must not only acquire the 
requisite preparation and abilities, bodily and mental, 
but must put them into execution in something active. 
What this may be depends upon the circumstances 
of the individual case, and these are, in all probability, 
circumstances over which the individual has no ab- 
solute control. But this can in no wise alter or affect 
the principle of the obligation. 

This principle is plain, clear, and explicit ; and it 
may be said to embody in it the essence of all the 
positive duties which Man in his individual capacity 
owes to society. Of course we do not, at this stage 
of the investigation, make the slightest reference to 
any of the institutions or enactments of society as to 
Man's obedience or breach of any one of them. They 
are conventional matters, and are to be judged of in 
themselves individually ; and they have nothing to do 
with the general principle, which, in its own nature, 
is anterior to, and far above, all merely human insti- 
tution or enactment. The entire duty may be summed 
up in these few words : — It is the duty of Man to 
prepare himself, both body and mind, for the most 

III. G 



62 STANDARD OF MAN'S 

efficient discharge of every work which may be re- 
quired of him, either for his own well-being or for 
that of society ; and when the performance of it is 
required of him, he is to do it with all the energy and 
all the ability of which he is capable. 

There is one consideration which is essential to the 
right performance ; and that is, that nothing which 
comes under the denomination of a duty, — and every 
thing that Man does or can do, if it is not a crime or 
wrong, comes under this denomination, — no duty 
ought to be viewed in the light of a task, otherwise it 
will not be performed in the manner that it ought. The 
proper feeling is a wish and a determination to exceed 
what is expected ; because this secures for the party 
an honourable distinction among his fellows, which 
is in itself one of the surest means of virtue and 
happiness. 

Before we proceed to the consideration of the 
negative duty, we may just glance back at the tenor 
of the commandment : — " Thou shalt love thy neigh- 
bour as thyself." — " As thyself" not more, not less, 
are the express words ; and, in consequence of this, 
the way in which a man u loves himself " is an im- 
portant element in forming a right judgment on the 
manner in which he performs his relative duty to 
society, and of judging whether that is as it ought to 
be or not. It is quite evident, from the mere wording 
of the commandment, that there is no sacrifice of a 
man's own interest or happiness to the interest and 
happiness of society required of him ; and it is pretty 
evident, from what we observe in human nature, that 



LOVE, SELF-LOVE. 63 

if such were required it would not be given. It lias 
been said, and we have every reason to believe that 
the saying is invariably true, " That he who professes to 
sacrifice his own interest for that of society, always 
means thereby to conceal his practice of sacrificing 
the welfare of society to his own interest ;" and when 
circumstances happen to lay bare the characters of 
these good " canting men of general philanthropy," 
who pretend to make such sacrifices, it is generally 
found that, under the glare of this pretence, which, as 
they flatter themselves, shall blind the eyes of men, 
they are in reality M sacrificing to their own net, and 
burning incense to their own drag; 55 and that, in 
truth, they deserve to be numbered with the impostors. 
They belong to that worthless and deceiving class who 
pretend to be "righteous over-much/' which, as 
every body knows, is precisely the same thing as 
being righteous " over-little." Those who keep any 
law, whether divine or human, "too much," are just 
as guilty of breaking it, and very nearly of the same 
breach, as they who keep it " too little." 

There is this further beauty in the expression — " as 
thyself," that a man who does not do his duty to 
himself cannot do his duty to society. It is not the 
feeling of rank, or station, or wealth, or connexion, 
or of social distinction of any kind, which ought to be 
the foundation here — the basis of that love of himself 
which, according to the commandment, a man is 
bound to extend to his neighbour, and which he must 
of course possess in himself, and for himself, before 
he can so extend it. These distinctions, or any of 



64 STATUS IN SOCIETY. 

them, may be very useful as points d'appui for 
sustaining a man in the estimation of society, when 
matters are a little doubtful with him — a sort of 
" witnesses to character/' which may have the effect of 
mitigating his punishment in the estimation of others, 
but they have no bearing upon the strict justice of 
the case ; and a man who pleads his status in society, 
when he degrades himself as a man, or offends against 
that society, makes the very same kind of figure as a 
criminal who, after being convicted upon the clearest 
evidence, boasts of his witnesses to character. Either 
of them may have, and probably has, its influence with 
the public, for mankind are naturally fond of rank 
and distinction, and we are all prone to worship that 
to which we are partial. But when we look upon the 
even justice of either of these cases, we come to a 
very different conclusion; for the man who pleads 
either his rank or the respectability of those who 
have known him, really confesses, by the very fact of 
doing so, that he is a worse man than if his status in 
life had been lower, or his acquaintance less respect- 
able, — he makes voluntary proclamation that he has 
fallen with more means of having stood than the 
majority of those who fall ; and that, by necessary con- 
sequence, he is more weak or more wicked than they. 
There is a feeling far higher, more pure, and we 
may say more personal, than any of those which must 
be the foundation of a man's self-love, if that self- 
love is to be of the kind which he can, as according 
to the commandment he should, extend to his neigh- 
bour. A man ought not to make a boast or a con- 



FOUNDATION OF DUTY. 65 

tinual avowal of its origin, because that would again 
be calling " a witness to character," and he who 
pleads " saintship " in mitigation of any vice or foil}', 
is in all cases a meaner and more despicable villain 
than the man who pleads some worldly consideration. 
But, notwithstanding this exclusion of boasting, which 
exclusion is again in obedience to a gospel precept, 
we are sure that no man's self-love can be wholesome 
to himself, far less have the social quality which is 
enjoined, unless it is based upon religion. 

The feeling of the true dignity 7 of human nature, 
as it arises from a right understanding of the nature 
and position of Man as God's creature, with reference 
to creation and redemption, and to this world and to 
eternity, is the proper and only foundation of genuine 
self-love ; and if this foundation is once laid, a man will 
neither need nor allow himself to build upon any other. 

It must, we presume, be admitted that self-love is 
the spring of all human actions. This, we are aware, 
has been denied, and repudiated as a most dangerous 
and unholy doctrine. But notwithstanding the vitu- 
perations, it is perfectly true, and admitted to be so 
both by revelation and by reason — which, by the way, 
are always in perfect harmony when they are under- 
stood. The fact is, that the contrary is a downright 
absurdity. Of what use is the world to a man after 
he is dead? What would be the value of the en- 
joyments of heaven or the fear of the torments of hell, 
if the grave were to be to us the bed of eternal obli- 
vion? What reciprocity even of simple regard can 
there be between the world of reality and an ideal 

g3 



66 ANALYSIS OF 

man who is never to be born ? And yet, if each and 
all of these questions are not capable of being an- 
swered in the affirmative, the fact that self-love is the 
motive of all human action, may very fairly be held 
as demonstrated. Analyse it as you will, the feeling 
that, in some way or other, " I shall make one," min- 
gles with all our wishes for the welfare of society or 
any portion of it; and to pretend the contrary is 
deception or delusion, and the party asserting it has 
his position narrowed to the two alternatives of im- 
postor or ignoramus. 

The cause of this dispute lies in the understanding 
which the parties have of what is meant by self-love* 
If they attach a bad meaning to it, they cannot 
well suppose that it can be the courier of a good 
action. But why attach a bad meaning to it ? Self — 
the being which God made, and which he has placed 
in certain relations to Himself, is not bad, is it ? Then 
this is the " self" that we ought to love, and the love of 
which is the motive of all our actions. If we degrade 
it in any way, we need not love the degradation, — 
though in reality we do it, how much soever we may 
conceal the fact. There are few sayings more true or 
apposite than that which is expressed in the following 
couplet : 

" And, when we cry down self, none means 
His own self in a literal sense." 

Thus, all that is said about the wickedness of self, and 
the virtues of self-denial and self-humiliation, comes 
within that most offensive category of deception, 
which is known under the popular name of cant. 



SELF-LOVE. 6/ 

Thus self-humiliation always puts one in mind of the 
old discipline of the monk, who was in use to flay his 
back with a scourge in public, and balance the account 
by flogging his belly with a fat capon and a flagon of 
wine in the snug retreat of the refectory. 

The truth is, that, instead of self, or selfishness, 
being of any injury either to Man or to Society, there 
is never one error made, or wrong committed, or 
crime perpetrated, in which self is not, upon the 
whole, the greatest sufferer, both in degradation and 
in punishment ; and if all men could and would have 
due love and respect for self, we should hear nothing 
of misconduct or crime of any description whatsoever. 
If we had only all a proper knowledge and love of self, 
and could keep these constantly in view as the grand 
rules of action, the government of society would be 
cheap and easily administered, and the sword and the 
mace might be hung upon their pegs, to rust and rot 
at their leisure. 

But in practice, as men are always cherishing some 
idol of worship instead of that God who made them, 
so are they also always going after some idol of the 
affections instead of that Self, — that intelligent and 
immortal creature which God made. Some of these 
idolatrous departures from our true selves will have 
to be mentioned when we come to notice the errors 
of the affections ; and therefore we shall at present 
content ourselves with the general statement, the 
truth of which can neither be denied nor disputed by 
any one who properly understands the subject. To 



68 AN ERROR. 

such as may be sceptical, or may be schooled in error 
(for it is the practice with some parties to impugn 
the truth, in order to clear an arena for the display of 
their own little, paltry idol or joss), we would say 
only as follows, leaving the conclusion to their own 
candour, if they happen to have any : — " In every case 
of self-degradation, self-error, or self anything amiss 
you can name, is there not always a certain something 
in supplement to that self which God made, — a certain 
idol of the affections ? — and is not the going forth of 
the emotions after this idol the real cause of the 
wrong, which wrong is thus as much a crime against 
self as against the laws of society, or any laws what- 
soever ?** If this question is fairly met, we know what 
the answer must be. If it is not fairly met, we need 
not put another : the party is in that case " joined to 
his idols •" and therefore, in as far as rational convic- 
tion of any kind is concerned, we may as well follow 
out the quotation, and " let him alone." 

One who is duly actuated by this genuine self-love 

this self-love which is founded upon the knowledge of 
our God and of ourselves, and which is enjoined as 
the standard of our love to our neighbour, that is, to 
society, — one who is duly actuated by this, requires 
no other rule of action in the moral part of the busi- 
ness of life, of whatever nature and extent that business 
may be. It is true that this will not, of itself, give us 
any direct knowledge of the things of the external 
world, of the principles of science, of the practice of 
the arts or of business, or of the structure of society 



OUR TRUE GUIDE. 69 

and the relative stations of its several members ; but it 
will lead us on directly to all of them, and will keep 
us ever anxious and right in the pursuit of them. 

If we have a proper feeling of the dignity of our 
characters as men, we shall never stand still either in 
seeking to know or in learning to do ; and if this is 
rightly conducted, we shall advance in usefulness and 
respectability in the world, in proportion as we con- 
tinue true to the fundamental principle of self-love. 
But our emotions are always in danger of getting 
before our understanding ; and the enjoyments of the 
world, and the example of those about us, all act as 
so many means of temptation which entice us out of 
the right path, — and when we have once departed from 
that, return is not so easy a matter. 

In no case is it possible, from the cause which 
we have stated, to escape some, indeed many, aberra- 
tions ; but there may be some deviation without an 
actual destruction of the principle. The cause of the 
advantage of emotion over understanding may at once 
be understood, when we consider that the emotion is 
instantaneous — a feeling of our nature — whereas the 
understanding is always the result of a process of in- 
formation and thought, which occupies some time 
even in those whose minds are in the best state of 
cultivation and discipline. Thus it is that no man is 
perfect in his moral character, his duty to himself or 
to society, his science, his art, or his anything else ; but 
this is our provision against despair in the case of 
little wanderings, and it often saves the character 
when otherwise that would be ruined. It is, however, 



70 CHARACTER AND REPUTATION. 

the dangerous point; for the line between not despair- 
ing because of one error, and daring to commit 
another error, is so very fine, that we are too often 
unable to see it. This uncertainty ought to prevent 
us from being dogmatical in our opinion upon our 
own case, and very many of us how w T e give any 
opinions upon the cases of others. 

There is one certain criterion : the man who is ac- 
tuated by proper self-love always rises in character, 
whatever may be the circumstances under which he 
is placed. By character we do not mean, of course, 
reputation, as that floats upon the common breath of 
society. The best characters have seldom the best 
reputations in this way; and there are very many men 
who pass through the world with excellent characters, 
and yet who never have any reputation at all, good or 
bad. It falls much more in with certain weaknesses 
of human nature to propagate evil reports than good 
ones, and no description of persons are more invete- 
rately given to this than they who are denominated 
the " saints." No doubt they mourn over these 
matters, and expatiate on the wickedness of human 
nature, and the want of the " healing balm M of saint- 
craft; but one who is accustomed to look a little 
deeper than the surface, fails not to perceive that the 
sighs which escape, or rather which are fetched out, 
from them, are no sighs of sorrow. They are loved 
in secret, as demonstrations of the dogmas which they 
have set up as the idols of their worship, instead of 
that truth which admits of no idol. It is often curi- 
ous to mark the different ways in which those parties 



SAINT AND NO SAINT. 71 

are affected by the merely nominal distinction — for it 
is purely nominal — of (i saint " and " no saint." If 
the latter errs ever so venially, out comes a violent 
tirade against the corruption of human nature; but if, 
— which is rather common among such parties,— some 
fervid minister of holy love should err in the flesh, 
then human nature is spared, and the whole mishap 
is charged upon the devil, as if he could have any 
personal concern or interest in the breach of the par- 
ticular statute which had been fractured by " the pious 
inbearing of the holy man." 

In every station, and in all the modifications of life, 
the man who has the proper feeling of self-love, as 
man, may be known ; and you can readily distinguish 
him from the meaner mortal who has huckstered away 
his proper self-esteem for the gratification of some 
passion, and thus has no love to spare for his neigh- 
bour—no right feeling to society ; but who regards it 
as a poacher regards a preserve, — as the source of dis- 
honest gain, when darkness shall cover his predatory 
inroad upon it. It is in the rubs and reverses of the 
world, however, which do come — though not, perhaps, 
in equal measure — upon the better and the worse, that 
you have full demonstration of the reality and value 
of his character ; and, when you find a man rise the 
higher in moral greatness, the more angrily that this 
w T orld's waves beat against him, you may be sure that 
that man is right in the foundation of his love of him- 
self; that he will, to the utmost of his ability, extend 
it to his neighbour; and that he will let slip no oppor- 
tunity of improving himself in all that can add dig- 



72 NEGATIVE DUTIES — JUSTICE. 

nity, usefulness, and the capacity of rational enjoyment 
to human nature. Such is a popular outline of that 
which forms the essence of all the active duties of Man 
to Society ; and we cannot consider it upon the details 
of any one case, without breaking down its unity, and 
impairing its general effect. 

In the second place, we have to consider the nega- 
tive duties which Man owes to Society; and the general 
statement embodying the principle of these may be 
made in very few words : — " No man ought to stand 
unjustly in the way of another, so as to impede his 
progress, or injure his prosperity and happiness, in 
society." This is the general proposition ; and if this 
could be acted up to, there is no necessity of laying 
down any further law upon the subject. There is, 
however, an indefinite condition in this general state- 
ment,, which requires explanation, and that is, the quali- 
fication given to the whole by the word " unjustly." 
Could we settle the general meaning of this term, the 
question of morality and love of mankind would be 
brought within very narrow limits ; but the settling 
of this is a matter of extreme difficulty ; for though 
every man is perfectly satisfied with his own justice — 
that is, with his own opinion of justice, in every case 
which interests him, yet, when we come to make a 
general examination, we find that there are not un- 
frequently as many modes of the justice of the case as 
there are parties interested in it ; and when we make 
the individual the subject of our examination, we find 
that he very often has a different view of justice in 
every different case ; or, if the discrepancies are not 



PASSIVE LOYALTY. 73 

so great as to make the one run counter to the other, 
they are always conspicuous enough for destroying 
the identity, and preventing us from saying that any 
man has a constant and invariable perception of prac- 
tical justice in all cases that can come before him. 
We are not now inquiring into what may give the 
bias, or whether this bias may be right or wrong in 
any particular case : we are only stating the general 
principle, for each particular case must be settled upon 
its own merits. 

Thus there is no absolute general rule, according 
to which we are enabled to say, in every case that 
may arise, whether one man does or does not " stand 
unjustly in the way of another." There are a thousand 
things that may stand in the way of a man's happiness 
or prosperity, as fatally for him as the unjust opposi- 
tion of man could do ; and yet no man may be guilty 
of the slightest injustice. Thus, our most gracious 
sovereign, and, for aught that we know, or indeed 
care, about the matter, probably nine hundred and 
ninety-nine of every thousand of the human race, 
and a large majority of the odd ones, stand between 
us and our being seated on the throne of these king- 
doms ; and yet so far are we from feeling that we are 
unjustly done by in this, that we have not one wish 
about the matter ; nor — barring the lip-loyalty of the 
day, which is said or sung without much, or any, re- 
gard to meaning — do we care one straw by whom that 
high seat is filled, provided that the duties are pro- 
perly done, and that nobody is injured by the succes- 
sion. Again, there are very many beautiful residences 

III. H 



74 MAXIM OF CONTENT. 

and fine estates in the county where we at present 
reside, and the present proprietors stand directly in 
the way of our having all of these, or any one of them 
that we might fancy the most ; but when, on a fine 
summer's day, we take a saunter in any of those 
beautiful demesnes, though we perhaps are as much 
pleased with it as the proprietor himself, we never feel 
that the slightest injustice has been done to us in the 
place not being our property; and, so far from feeling 
any envy at these men, in consequence of they and 
others coming between us and the possession of these 
estates, we can wish them health, and enjoyment of 
them, with the very same equanimity of feeling as 
though we were the owner, and they poor wayfaring 
men getting a crust of bread and a horn of small beer 
at our lordly gate. To come a little more towards 
home : there are many men of high name and merit, 
in science and literature — no, not very many in lite- 
rature — and if these were out of the way, we might 
have a chance of some name and renown in some 
branch of science ; but, so far from feeling any in- 
justice in this matter, we really and heartily wish that 
the stars in the scientific sky were both multiplied and 
magnified ; and we do this upon the plain principle of 
society, — that we should have our share of this advan- 
tage in the full measure of our capacity of receiving it. 
Our maxim has long been — " Deserve what you can, 
and be pleased with what you get ;" and we find that, 
if it leads to no wealth or fame, there is happiness in 
it, which, after all, is the grand matter. 

We need not say that we make these personal allu- 



DISTINCTIONS OF RANKS. /5 

sions with no ostentatious intention, for we know not 
the power of the moral microscope that could find 
even a monadic root of ostentation in them ; but they 
go at least so far in illustration of the word " un- 
justly/' as it occurs in the general enunciation of our 
negative duty to society. In themselves, there is no 
injustice in any of the distinctions of men in society, 
in rank, in possession, in mental acquirements, or in 
anything else; and the more numerous and more 
marked that they are, it is, abstractedly speaking, all 
the better for society, even to the very humblest of its 
members. There is more excitement, — a wider field 
for every man ; and, " if no man stands unjustly in 
the way of another," there is more hope, nay, more 
certainty, of success. The witless and the wicked 
may talk as loudly as they please about the justice 
and the advantages of civil equality among men ; but 
how grateful soever those matters may be to those 
who wish to possess that which they do not deserve, 
it is as contrary to the principles of moral justice as it 
is absurd and impossible in its very nature. The only 
" level " for mankind is the very bottom of society : 
in proportion as the whole are sunk nearer to that, 
they are more nearly upon an equality ; and, as some 
will, in every state of society, remain at the bottom, 
let others rise ever so high, the very lowest will always 
appear more miserable in proportion as the average of 
society is more elevated and improved. A bricklayer's 
labourer in England forms a striking contrast with 
any of the leading nobility, who conducts himself in a 
manner becoming his rank ; but, take it all in all, the 



/0 DUTIES ARISING FROM 

condition of the hodman is far more comfortable than 
was that of the favourite vassal of a quondam High- 
land chief. 

But, while the social distinction which any indivi- 
dual member of society, from the highest to the lowest, 
may possess, is perfectly secure to him, both in justice 
and in equity, against the inroad of every other indi- 
vidual, every difference in rank, possession, or any- 
thing else, involves in it a difference of duty to society. 
" Where much is given, much is required," is the 
maxim here ; and it is one from which there is no 
deviation. The distinction may come by descent, or 
it may come by personal exertion of some kind or 
other ; but no matter how it comes, for the real fact 
is, that it comes in consequence of the parties, or, 
which amounts to the same thing, their ancestors or 
connexions, being members of society. If a man can 
do no better than carry a hod, then his duty to society 
consists in his being diligent in the use of his hod, 
economical in the spending of his wages, and careful 
in avoiding squabbles and the alehouse; and it will be 
seen that this is also his duty to himself, for it is by 
such conduct that hodmen become bricklayers, then 
builders, and so rise to independence. 

Take a case in the opposite extreme of society, — in 
a proprietor of extensive estates in land. We are in- 
clined to place this character at the head of society, 
because he is the master, or, if you will, the steward, 
over a number of those who are engaged in the most 
essential of all occupations, — the production of human 
food, without which all the manufactories and mer- 



DISTINCTIONS. 77 

cantile establishments in the world would be of little 
or no value. Therefor e, if there is any one station of 
importance and honour within the scope of society, in 
which it is the duty of the holder to be among his 
people, and encouraging them, it is the station of a 
landowner : yet, though this seems a self-evident pro- 
position, strange to say, there is no class of men that, 
taken generally, are so negligent of their duty both to 
themselves and to society. The reason seems to be, 
that, of all active stations — and he who is master, in 
any way, over active men, should, in duty, be the most 
active of the whole— of all active men, the proprietors 
of land are the only ones that can obtain a handsome 
revenue without taking any share in the superintend- 
ence of what is going on. The consequence is, that 
many of them know no more about how an estate 
should be managed, than they know about the Chinese 
alphabet or the dictates of common sense. The care 
of the estate is left to hirelings, while he who ought 
to care for it, and be on it and acquainted with it for 
that purpose, lives at a distance, and wastes his time 
in dissipation or frivolity, and often in penury and 
want, while these hirelings, in whom he has placed his 
confidence, are wasting his estate, or conspiring with 
others as to how they may most easily and speedily 
deprive him of it altogether. 

The mischief that is done in this way is absolutely 
incredible to those who have not entered into the most 
careful and minute examination of the subject. One 
can have some little notion of it by comparing two 
proximate estates, the one under factorship, and the 

h3 



/» RESIDENT AND 

other under a resident proprietor, who knows his duty, 
and is active and regular in the performance of it. 
It is not only in hedgerows, and gates, and cottages, 
and matters of that kind, that the difference is appa- 
rent ; for, to look at them, one would think that the 
animals and plants actually know when the master is 
resident, and put on their best appearance to do him 
honour. The former are so sleek and lively, and the 
latter so much more healthy and vigorous, that one 
who has very little skill in such matters may easily 
tell the difference. 

The non-residence of a proprietor is always a loss 
to the locality in which his estate is situated, both in 
an economical and a moral point of view ; but, when 
we consider the number of estates within the British 
islands, from which the proprietors are permanently 
or partially absent, and also the number where the 
resident proprietor cares nothing about his proper 
duties, the question assumes a very important shape 
in a national point of view. The people often com- 
plain of the laws which prevent the free importation 
of corn from other countries ; and though those law r s 
are probably of no use to the proprietors of land, and 
their repeal would not perhaps ultimately be of much 
use to any class of the people, yet they ought certainly 
to be repealed for the sake of peace, and their own 
absurdity. 

But when we consider the extent to which the 
neglect of lands by their proprietors operates in 
" preventing the growth of British corn," we find a 
subject of vastly more serious import than the other. 



NON-RESIDENT PROPRIETORS. 7^ 

It would be difficult to make an estimate ; but, from 
a tolerable extensive and careful examination in dif- 
ferent parts of the country, we are certain that ten 
per cent., and very much inclined to believe that 
twenty per cent., of the entire value of the crops is 
lost by the negligence of the proprietors; and this 
would make more addition to the quantity in the 
market than if all that is now disposable in foreign 
countries were to be imported gratis. Legislation has 
much less influence upon the price of corn to the con- 
sumer than either the friends or the enemies of the 
present system of corn-laws seem to be aware of; 
and, when it does operate at all, it probably operates 
chiefly upon the quantity produced, and most 
frequently in diminishing the amount of that quan- 
tity. 

The history of the English corn-laws — that is, the 
various enactments which have from time to time 
been made, with a view of regulating the price of 
corn, or of promoting the interests of those who grow 
it, or those who consume it — is a curious subject, if 
(as we have not) we had room to give an outline of it. 
In the early times, the general policy was to prevent 
the exportation of corn, and thereby keep down the 
price, without any consideration of the effect that this 
might have on the quantity produced, or on the real 
comfort of the consumer. This state of things was 
attended with very marked seasonal consequences : im- 
mediately after harvest, the necessities of the farmers 
compelled them to sell much below the average of the 
year, and the consequence was waste and prodigality 



80 CORN-LAWS. 

on the part of the consumer; but the wheel came 
round before the next harvest, and there was yearly a 
dearth, and not unfrequently a famine. The act of 
1436, which allowed exportation when the price did 
not exceed a certain amount in the home market, had 
some beneficial effects : it increased the quantity grown, 
and it checked the extravagance occasioned by the ex- 
cessively low prices just after harvest. It is true that 
these were not the intended effects, but they were the 
real ones. Twenty- seven years after this, a prohibition 
of importing foreign corn, until the price in the home 
market had reached that at which exportation was al- 
lowed, was enacted ; and agriculture languished under 
the operation of this double law. In the reign of Charles 
II., a more free exportation was allowed, and the duty on 
importation reduced ; and in the reign of William and 
Mary, a bounty was granted on corn exported. But, 
notwithstanding both bounty and prohibition, the 
quantity of exported corn diminished; and there were 
complaints of the low and suffering condition of the 
agricultural interest. The grand improvement in 
manufactures, at that time, gave an impulse to the 
industry of the people ; and the demand for corn in 
the home market greatly increased. This led to a 
more favourable rate of import, and a cessation of the 
bounty on wheat, when the price exceeded a certain 
sum ; but there was a flaw in the statute, as the im- 
portation was not allowed till the price had risen four 
shillings a quarter, on wheat, above that at which the 
bounty ceased. After this, which happened in 1773, 
the alterations of the corn-laws have been wholly con- 



CORN-LAWS. 81 

fined to regulating the prohibitory statutes against 
importation. In comparing the fluctuations of the 
prices of corn with those fluctuations of the law, one 
can trace no such coincidence between them as to 
establish any very necessary or obvious connexion 
between the one and the other. 

These corn-laws are matters of mere conventional 
arrangement, dependent on no fixed principle; and, 
from the history, apparently ineffectual for the pur- 
pose they were intended to answer; and therefore, 
as we said before, they ought to be expunged from 
the statute-book, on the ground of their absurdity 
alone. 

We have gone into this apparent digression, not 
from any desire to discuss the question of the corn- 
laws, but because it bears very directly upon the case 
of the proprietors of estates, which case we have 
selected for the illustration of our argument. That 
neither the proprietors, nor those who farm the lands 
under them, feel much benefit from the corn-laws, we 
can see by observation ; and it can be deduced from 
the clearest principles, that the grand source of suf- 
fering to both is the neglect, by the proprietors, of 
their estates. Indeed, while they continue in that 
state of ignorance and neglect which is now so com- 
mon, all the legislative enactments in the world will 
not be of much use to them; but, in so far as prac- 
tical effect is concerned, they will sound much the 
same in the ear of reason as a statute which should 
run in this wise : — " And be it enacted, by and with 
the advice as aforesaid, that, from and after the pass- 



82 DUTIES OF LANDLORDS. 

ing of this act no person falling into the water shall 
be drowned, and no person walking into the fire shall 
be burned." 

The case may be reduced to two very short and 
simple positions : — First, the proprietor of an estate 
in land has a very important duty to society, which 
duty he is bound to perform, otherwise he is unfaith- 
ful to his trust, and ungrateful for that honourable 
station in which he is placed by being in an improved 
and civilized country. Secondly, no man can perform 
this high and honourable duty, as it ought to be per- 
formed, but the proprietor himself. 

First, as to the duty. The public value of an estate, 
in a social or national point of view, is the production 
of a certain quantity of human food, the most indis- 
pensable of all articles that can be produced in any 
country; and, therefore, society generally have a 
deeper interest in its effective production than they 
have in that of any luxury, or even any other neces- 
sary of life. Not only this ; for any one who reflects 
on the subject but for a moment, must arrive at the 
conviction that, of all the occupations in which Man 
can be employed, the management of the cultivation 
of the ground, in such a manner as that the same 
breadth of surface shall yield the best and most abun- 
dant crop, and continue to do the same, year after 
year, without any deterioration of the soil, is the one 
which requires the greatest knowledge and experience. 
Though many are, in the plenitude of their own igno- 
rance, in the habit of bestowing what they consider 
as being clownish epithets upon the cultivators of the 



IMPORTANCE OF AGRICULTURE. 83 

soil, and the rearers of domesticated animals, yet no 
one manufacturer, no ten manufacturers taken to- 
gether, require the constant application of so many 
practical sciences, and all of them involving elements 
of the most indeterminate kind. So much is this the 
case, that when a man has made a fortune, as it is 
called, by some trade or manufacture in a town, and 
retires to the country, the economy of which he is un- 
acquainted with, to spend the evening of life in the 
practice of farming, after he has laid out part of his 
fortune in the purchase of stock and implements, he 
is obliged to lay out a good deal more in the purchase 
of experience. 

The fact is, that any one of the many subjects that 
have to occupy the attention of the man who shall 
farm in the very best manner, would be study enough 
for most men. The nature of soils, and the adapting 
of manures to them in such a way as that there shall 
be no want or waste, is a study; the mode of pre- 
paring the soil in the best manner, and the least labour 
and expense, is a study ; the seasons and the weather, 
and their secular variations, are a study ; the choice 
of plants and their varieties for seed is a study ; and, 
in a word, everything that requires to be done is a 
study. It is also a local study; for the treatment 
which suits best in one place may fail in another, 
which is not at any very great distance. These varie- 
ties may happen on the very same farm, and even in 
the same field. Thus, in many parts of England, one 
part of the same farm may be chalk, a second loam, a 
third strong clay, and a fourth sand or loose gravel ; 



84 PARAMOUNT DUTY 

and all of them are suited for different crops, and re- 
quire different treatment. 

It may be said that all these matters may be left to 
the practical farmer, and we are willing to admit that 
much must and ought to be left to him ; but still there 
is a something which nobody can do properly but the 
landlord, and he ought to understand it and do it. 
The farmer holds for the term of his lease only, and 
he holds for the private purpose of making as much 
over and above his rent as he possibly can ; but the 
landlord has a more permanent holding, in which the 
whole of society has an interest. Like all others, he 
should have his reward, and honour along with it, if 
he so deserves ; but he must deserve both, otherwise 
he has no moral right to either, whatever the conven- 
tional laws of the country may give him. His holding 
is hereditary, and so his progeny have a provision; 
but they have this provision as their reward for the care 
of that which ought to be secured to the country, — an 
increase in the productiveness of the soil, which shall 
bear something like a fair ratio to the increase of the 
manufactures and the numbers of the people. The 
farmers will not do this of their own accord, and you 
have no right to compel them, or even to expect it of 
them. It wants the knowledge and the attention of 
the proprietor himself, whose interest and whose duty 
it is ; and while he is doing this, his presence, if he is, 
as he ought to be, a man worthy of his situation, 
would in itself be half the battle in this and in many 
other matters. 

No factor, steward, or other party holding deputed 



OF LANDLORDS. 85 

authority, can or will do this, however able and honest 
he maybe in his own capacity and place. He cannot, 
because, though the proprietor may delegate to him 
his own legal authority, his moral influence, w T hich is 
the valuable part of the matter, is not transferable ; 
and he will not, because, how r ever honest he may be 
in his desire to serve his master, that master is not 
himself; and, whatever may be said to the contrary, 
it accords strictly with the law of nature, and is not at 
variance with the law of God, that a man shall serve 
himself in the first instance. We mean to bring no 
accusation against those who take the management of 
many fine estates which the owners neglect : we are, 
on the contrary, ready to admit that they are most 
upright and conscientious men; but we take their 
case on the ground of their very honesty and consci- 
entiousness. A conscientious and honest man must, in 
the first instance, be honest and conscientious to him- 
self and his family ; and, unless he is so, he is not to 
be trusted in the case of another. A man that denies 
this does not speak the truth, as we know it to exist 
in nature; and he who speaks not the truth cannot be 
trustworthy. 

Wherefore, society — that is, the society and all the 
human beings in, and belonging to, the country, in- 
cluding the neglectful proprietor of land, as well as 
the rest, have their first, and by far their most im- 
portant interest, compromised in his neglect ; and he 
is equally an offender against the interests of himself 
and his family as he is against those of his country. 
The plea that " he has a right to do what he will with 
in, I 



SG CLAIM OF SOCIETY 

his own," will not justify the richest proprietor in the 
country, in the case of wrong done, any more than 
it will justify a man who has no estate but a pair of 
hands, in the wrongfulness of those hands. The man 
who has only the hands may not use them in taking 
or injuring the property of any other man, or even in 
the taking away his own life, though he may do all the 
good with them that he can, both to himself and to 
others. The extent of the possession cannot alter the 
nature of the law of that possession, though it may 
heighten the good or deepen the evil ; and, therefore, 
though the possessor of a large estate may do all the 
good with it that he can, he may not use it as the 
means of evil to society, to any one member of 
society, to himself or to the estate, even though he 
held the whole empire in fee-simple, and strictly 
entailed on him and his heirs. 

Wherefore, again, the proprietor of an estate has a 
duty to perform to society, great in proportion to the 
extent and value of that estate ; and if he neglects to 
perform this duty to the full extent of his ability, or 
to qualify himself for the right performance of it, he 
is guilty at the bar of society, and unworthy of the 
place in it which has come to him by ancestry or by 
accident. There are too many of the proprietors of 
estates in all parts of the country who are in this pre- 
dicament ; and it is well for some of them that Com- 
mon Sense has no constant seat on the bench ; for 
assuredly, if she found them guilty of flirting at operas 
or brawling at gambling -houses in foreign parts, or 
even yawning over the newspapers in club-houses, or 



ON LANDLORDS. 87 

losing their money at domestic hells, when they 
ought to be attending to their estates and setting an 
inspiring example to all around them, she would con- 
vict them to the treadmill with the same nonchalance 
as she would send those ragged wanderers about the 
streets who have no good account to give of them- 
selves. 

We have chosen this case, and we have dwelt upon 
it at some length, not because we have the slightest 
animosity to the proprietors of the land, but because 
that, if they would all do their duty as some, — as 
many, we hope, do it, the country would be in a very 
different state from that in which it is at present. 
We have also stated these as the most permanent as 
well as the most important of all the influential classes. 
Manufactures and trades seem old and got out of 
fashion ; but bread and fat beeves have been from the 
beginning of civilization, and — at least we hope so, as 
we are aware of no adequate substitutes for them — 
they will continue to the end. These faults may be 
considered not as a positive aggression upon society, 
but as injustice; they stand in the way of others, 
who would do in a proper manner that which they 
neglect. 

As we have taken pretty nearly the extremes of 
society in the examples of the hodman and the pro- 
prietor of large estates, they may be held as includ- 
ing between them all the intermediate ranks and 
classes ; therefore we shall not need to enter into the 
details of every one of them. So we may leave this 



88 DUTIES OF SOCIETY. 

branch of the subject with only this general remark, 
— that every man in society, and whatever be his 
rank or place in that society, or the means by which 
he obtained it, is bound to society to the full amount 
of the very best improvement and use to which he 
can turn himself and every thing in his power. No 
doubt the good of all is to himself in the first in- 
stance ; but the individual and society are so intimately 
connected, that the man who does the best for himself 
must also, at the same time and by the same means, 
do the best for society ; while he who really neglects 
what is his own interest, either in what he does or 
what he fails to do, is guilty of the same relative 
injury to society. 

The only remaining point upon this branch of our 
subject is the duty which Society owes to Man as an 
individual member of that society; and the con- 
sideration of this will not detain us very long. Society, 
being merely the name for an indefinite number of 
human beings who live in terms of certain conven- 
tional understanding with each other, cannot be said 
to have any duty to perform, or to be under any 
specific obligation to any one of the members, of 
whose aggregate it is the mere name. The members, 
in their individual capacities, must perform all the 
duties ; and all that can devolve upon the society as 
such, is the keeping of individuals right in the per- 
formance of what they do — according to those con- 
ventional arrangements into which the members 
of the society may have entered, — and the right 



PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS. 89 

in which does not involve any abstract principle, but 
merely that which the society have agreed to hold 
as such. 

These, though they all tend, or should tend, to the 
same purpose — the keeping of good order in society, 
and rendering it so agreeable to each individual as 
that he shall find his chief pleasure in doing his duty to 
himself and to others in the best manner that it can be 
done — are yet properly and indeed necessarily divisible 
into two distinct sections, which are always different 
from each other in their administration, and generally 
also in their origin. The first section consists of laws 
and legislative enactments, which are, or which ought 
to be, equally binding upon all the members of the 
society, without any regard to distinctions of rank or 
class. At least this is the general principle, whether 
it be always acted upon or not. This section in- 
cludes all of what are called the Public Institutions of 
Society ; and they may be general or local, according 
to circumstances, — the principle being that the local 
ones should be supplemental only to the general, 
and never in any way contradictory of them. We 
shall devote a future chapter to a few hints upon 
these institutions ; but to give any thing like even an 
outline of them would far exceed the limits of one 
entire volume,— the books upon the institutions of 
Britain alone being so numerous that they would load 
a ship ; and no man could read the whole of them, 
even if he were to live a hundred years and do nothing 
else. There is one principle, however, which ought 
to be borne in mind, and that is, that no merely con- 

i 3 



90 PUBLIC 

ventional institution can directly promote the intel- 
ligence or the productive industry of mankind ; and 
that, therefore, care should be taken that they do not 
hurt or hinder on the one hand that which they are 
incapable of promoting on the other. They may, 
however, have a sort of indirect influence, by coercing 
those by whom the progress of society in this way 
might otherwise be hindered. 

The other section of those restraints which society 
exerts upon its members, is perhaps, — at least in highly 
enlightened and improved states of society — even more 
influential than the other, though it originates in no 
positive authority, and has no power of enforcing 
named punishments on those who offend against it. 
This is what is called Public Opinion j and like that 
public, of which it purports to be an emanation, it 
fluctuates from day to day. In itself, it is a most 
shadowy and foundationless matter, — so much so 
that it does not admit of either analysis or definition. 
It depends upon what is called " the spirit " of the 
age, the time, or the place ; and it is truly said of 
(i the spirit " in all matters, " one cannot tell whence 
it cometh or whither it goeth." No individual or 
set of individuals that we can name, can be said to 
originate the public opinion of the time; and it is 
just as difficult to assign the numerous and rapid 
fluctuations of it to any definable or understandable 
cause. In the case of individuals, and even of sec- 
tions or parties of men, it is very often wrong, — in- 
jurious, and even cruel to the individual, and unjust 
to the party; but, notwithstanding these irnperfec- 



OPINION. 91 

tions or abuses, which really appear to be inseparable 
from its very nature, and which are the more nume- 
rous in proportion as it has more vigour, it is highly 
useful to society, and bears not only upon individuals 
but upon institutions. 



92 



CHAPTER III. 

SOCIAL ADAPTATIONS OF MAN. 

That Man is made for society, — that it is in society 
only where he can have rational enjoyment, or have 
his faculties so educated as to make him capable of 
such enjoyment, — are self-evident truths, neither re- 
quiring nor admitting of demonstration. We allow 
all the influence and all the solitary pleasure that 
Man can have in the feeling that he is alive, in the 
gratifications of his bodily senses and appetites, in 
the exercise of such mental speculations as one can 
suppose a solitary man to have, and in the feeling 
of the relation in which Man stands to his God. But 
after making all these allowances, we bid any one 
consider what the condition of a solitary man would 
be, and he will speedily find that it is impossible to 
bring the mind down to even fancy the idea of such 
a state of utter privation and wretchedness. 

Not only this, for we cannot form an idea of a per- 
fect solitary — of one who has never in all the days of 
his life seen or heard of one single individual of the 
race but himself. Even the allowances which we 
have made will not hold; for though we can con- 



THE SOLITARY. 93 

ceive that Man might eat and drink like the other 
animals without the society of his fellows, we have 
no conception whatever of the exercise of any one 
mental faculty in such a state ; nor have we the 
slightest ground of belief that a man solitary from 
the moment of his birth could have or acquire any 
knowledge whatever of his Creator, mind, immortality, 
or any thing save the few objects apparent to his 
senses ; and of these he would know nothing more 
than the simple fact of their being so apparent. 

All, however, that we can by possibility say of Man 
as a solitary being is purely hypothetical, as we have 
not a single fact connected with Man as a solitary 
being to which we can refer. The whole character of 
Man is modelled by society ; and few thoughts occupy 
his mind in which there is not some social reference. 
Strange as it may seem, it is, nevertheless, true, that 
the very breaches of the laws of society have not un- 
frequently what may be called a social origin, — as the 
offence is usually perpetrated with the intention and 
in the hope that the result will enable the party to 
stand better in the estimation of what he looks upon 
as society than he formerly did. And crimes of the 
most atrocious nature are sometimes perpetrated, not 
for the gratification of any personal revenge or other 
passion, but for the purpose of gaining a name in the 
estimation of the gang or section of persons with 
whom the perpetrator has associated himself. 

This social feeling, which has so much influence 
upon the character and conduct of Man, is complex, 
and admits of being resolved into several more simple 



94 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLE 

emotions, of which we shall have to take some notice 
by and by. But, taken as a general feeling, it is 
worthy of bearing in mind that it differs essentially 
from the social instinct of gregarious animals ; and 
that the difference is enough to show that, in Man, 
this feeling is, to some degree, a result of experience. 
There are certain circumstances under which the 
males of gregarious animals fight severe battles with 
each other ; but then there are always physical causes 
by means of which these physical hostilities can be 
explained. Among men, on the other hand, hostility 
to each other appears to be the natural state, and 
society to be always the result of some conventional 
understanding or arrangement, how rude soever that 
may be. Were not this the case, war would not be 
the first trade of mankind, and the making of arms 
their first manufacture. Pugnacity is never the object 
which brings the instinctive animals into herds, al- 
though, as we have said, there are physiological causes 
why some of them give battle to each other at certain 
times. In the case of human hostilities there are no 
such physiological causes; and yet the hostility of 
man to man in the savage state is as general as those 
observations of it that have been made — no horde has 
been found without weapons of some description or 
other, even when destitute of both clothing and habi- 
tations. 

The condition of females in these very rude states 
of society, shows us also that there is no instinctive 
principle upon which conjugal affection, which is one 
of the main pillars of social morality, can be founded. 



MENTAL, NOT INSTINCTIVE. 95 

The women are cruelly treated at all times; and 
society must make considerable advances before they 
are delivered from this bondage of tbe savage state. 
There may be other stages of society at which the 
pendulum may sway as far to the other side of the 
perpendicular ; and females may be enabled to make 
reprisals upon civilized man for the wrongs inflicted 
by savages ; but this does not invalidate the general 
argument that Man is not a social animal by instinct, 
but that the associating of man with man, from the 
meanest horde to the most populous and highly civilized 
nation, is a mental matter, — a matter founded upon the 
judgment of experience, and, at its first institution, 
conventional, and intended to answer a purpose, though 
what purpose we cannot positively say. The proba- 
bility is that mutual protection and assistance are the 
first bonds of those rude societies ; and that the same, 
varied only according to the circumstancee in which 
the parties are placed, continue the principal bonds of 
society in all its stages. 

As the social feeling is not an instinct, but a matter 
acquired by experience, it is highly probable that no 
two individuals of the race have either the same 
notion of what society is, or of the relations in which 
they stand to it. As the social feeling is a result of 
experience, that which a man feels to be real and 
actually existing society, must be what is personally 
known to him, and no other than this. A man, for 
instance, is an Englishman, or a Frenchman ; but all 
England or all France are not in this case his real 
society, as he cannot possibly obtain an experimental 



96 VARIOUS MEANINGS 

knowledge of them. How many or how few of them 
he may know depends, of course, upon the particular 
ones ; but in a great nation the portion must always 
be a very small one ; and yet it is chiefly upon this 
small portion that a man's opinion of society and of 
the relation in which he stands to. it depends. 

It is true that, in addition to this society of fact 
and truth, there are other societies of fancy and 
idolatry, by which msn are variously influenced ; and 
which, as is the case with idolatries of all kinds, are 
very apt to put us wrong, but not to put us right 
again. Thus, for instance, every man has a tolerably 
clear notion of that little society of which he is more 
immediately a member, and all the persons composing 
which are known to him; but his knowledge of the 
society of the whole of a great city or of a large 
country becomes vague in proportion as that is exten- 
sive, and he is very apt to come to wrong conclusions 
as to its real truths, and the relations in which he 
stands to it. This is the main reason why disputes 
upon subjects of this kind are so difficult to settle ; 
and why, when upon a scale of any considerable ex- 
tent, they are for the most part settled by conquest, 
and not by conviction. This is true, not only of 
international disputes, but of disputes between parties 
within the same nation, even when both are equally 
loud, and perhaps equally sincere in their professions 
of regard for that country where peace is disturbed 
and where prosperity is retarded by their animosities. 

There is no apparent possibility of avoiding this. 
Men cannot divest themselves of the habits and notions 



OF SOCIETY. 97 

of their own real or personal society ; and as little can 
they understand those of other men whose personal 
society is different. Thus, when they come to matters 
in which they have a common interest, but respecting 
which none of them are so well informed as they are 
respecting the character and conduct of their own little 
societies, they come with that which, although not 
actual prejudice upon the subject at issue — the general 
welfare of the country we shall, for instance, suppose 
— yet come with that which is far more inveterate 
than any prejudice could be, inasmuch as it is that 
which they have been in the constant habit of honestly 
and conscientiously believing, and this is that, and 
that alone, for which a good man will contend 
to battle, and even to martyrdom if that shall be 
necessary. 

Thus, the fact of the social feeling in Man, not being 
inherent and of the nature of an instinct, but acquired 
by experience, and as such varying with the circum- 
stances of each individual, renders the question of 
Man's adaptation to society so perfectly indefinite, 
that it cannot be solved in any way so as to become 
the basis of subsequent reasoning. Hence, we have 
no alternative but to examine the principal social 
emotions in detail, and hint at the good or evil of 
which they may be productive to the individual or to 
society, according to the manner and the motives of 
their operation. Even were it possible to do this in 
the most full and satisfactory manner, we should still 
be without any means of a general solution, because 
the elements are of such a nature as that we cannot 

III. K 



98 NO GENERAL THEORY 

generalize them. But though this is an insuperable 
barrier to our forming any thing like a general theory 
of Man in his Social Relations, yet it must not be 
supposed that it indicates any constitutional imper- 
fection in Man, or any impropriety of adaptation to 
the social state. The very reverse is the natural 
conclusion ; for in all parts of the study of Man, the 
portions at which our understanding, and conse- 
quently our philosophy, breaks down, are always those 
at which the subject becomes too exquisite for us. 
The connexion between the organic change and the 
mental perception, in the case of sensation, is one 
instance of this, and the connexion between the 
emotion of the mind and the organic change which 
follows that emotion, in the case of corporeal action, 
are instances of this. We know that k these exist, and 
we cannot reflect upon either of them for a moment, 
without perceiving how exquisitely beautiful it is; 
and how far these adaptations, which are brought about 
without any apparent means of an organic nature, 
exceed those in which such contrivances are apparent, 
is an especial wonder ; and, only that it affords no 
foundation upon which a structure of learning can be 
built, it would be by far the fairest basis for a proper 
system of Natural Theology. 

So, in the case of the adaptation of Man to Society, 
we can trace, and tracing cannot but admire, the 
results of the adaptation. We can see what Man has 
done in science and in art, and we can, from the past, 
form, as we do in all cases of experience, pretty 
rational conjectures regarding the future. We are 



OF SOCIETY. 99 

also compelled to admit that all these beneficial 
results have been produced by Man in Society ; that 
they could not have been produced without society, 
and a long continuation of society ; and that therefore 
each and all of them are to be attributed to the social 
adaptations of Man, and to these only ; nor, though 
we feel that we are wholly unable to say in what the 
adaptation consists, are we thence in any doubt of the 
reality of its existence, or is our admiration of these 
results in any degree lessened. 

In as far, indeed, as we can trace the adaptation of 
the individual backward from its results, we see that, 
in order to be productive of the best consequences 
upon the whole, it must lead to those very incon- 
veniences of which we have taken some notice. Man 
has to learn from example, which is nothing more 
than a secondary kind of experience — a transference 
of the experience of others to himself. He does this, 
of course, the more readily, the more nearly that 
which he imitates approaches to sensation and action 
in himself, — that is, the knowledge which he most 
readily and most rapidly acquires, and which remains 
most permanently with him, is that which he has 
actually seen done by others. Next to this, of course, 
is what he hears ; and perhaps in the formation ol 
his general character as a member of society, this has 
even more influence than the other. Our own actions, 
and all that we see others do, would form but a very 
scanty stock of knowledge, were it not for what we 
hear — including, also, of course, what we read, which 
is only a contrivance to serve the purpose of hearing, 



100 IMITATION. 

and which possesses considerable advantages over hear- 
ing, in some respects, though it falls short of it in 
positive effect at the time. The book can be heard at 
all times and in all places, but still the book is not the 
same kind of society as one who addresses himself 
personally to us. 

It is thus that, in the early stages of our existence 
especially, we acquire in great part the character, and 
even the modes of thinking, of those with whom we 
associate, as well as their language, down even to its 
minutest peculiarities. We even acquire their gait 
and bearing, their mode of going about what they do ; 
and if the class to which we belong is an exclusive 
one, and we live permanently in it for a considerable 
time, we, unknown to ourselves, become a sort of per- 
sonification of it. This, of course, extends not merely 
to action, to speech, and to the air and bearing of the 
body, but to the whole train of the intellectual cha- 
racter. We adopt the beliefs and the disbeliefs of 
our small society, very generally, without the slightest 
inquiry into the truth of their foundations ; and, in 
like manner we take up all their opinions of right and 
wrong, good and bad, and all matters whatsoever 
which have not been in some way or other altered 
by our own practical experience ; and even then, the 
dictum of our society will often maintain an obstinate 
battle with the palpable result of a contradictory ex- 
perience. 

This holds equally true, whatever it may be that 
places us among the members of any particular society. 
It may be mere locality, it may be rank, it may be 



SECTIONS OF SOCIETY. 101 

occupation, or it may be even a certain fashion of 
talking, or of any thing else ; and whatever it is, it 
gives us a prejudice in favour of our new society, and 
all that is thought, said, and done there ; and, at the 
same time, an equally strong prejudice to what runs 
counter to that which we have been inured to. This 
makes hundreds of societies existing in the same 
country at the same time, all of which have conflicting 
notions upon some points ; and when they do come to 
misunderstandings upon these, their misunderstand- 
ings are not easily adjusted. 

Still, it must not be considered that this localising 
of society — this breaking down of the great mass of 
the population of a country into small sections, is 
wholly, or even in the greater part, an evil. Attach- 
ments are the holds that Society has upon individual 
Man, and that individual Man has upon virtue. These, 
to jbe of such strength as to be useful, must be personal 
and local ; for a general attachment is at best a very 
doubtful matter, always lax, and very generally a mere 
pretence. We all know the character of him who 
claims no attachment to place, and can call no man 
friend or brother. He has no kindness for any part 
of society ; the best feelings of his nature have no 
escape ; and he is driven to the meanest vices as a 
resource against that feeling of the desolation of lone- 
liness, which would otherwise be unbearable. The 
spot that we love, be it the place of our birth or boy- 
hood, or the scene of any thing else that endears it 
to us, may be the most humble or the most homely 
upon the face of the earth ; and these recollections, 

k 3 



102 A MAN OF THE WORLD. 

to which we can always revert with a renewal of 
pleasure, when the ways of the world become rugged 
to us, may be ever so trifling, — they can in no 
instance be vicious, for vice never returns in sugges- 
tion without a sting ; but they give us a firmness and 
repose of character, which we could not entertain, 
even under the most exalted thoughts, if we had no 
attachment upon which the mind could rest. A 
" man of the world," as he is called, that is, a cosmo- 
polite, who has no attachment, but who stands equally 
free to do and to enjoy as he lists, has no enjoyment 
but of the world, and when he is by any means cut 
off from its activity, he has no alternative but being 
utterly wretched. He may be free from prejudices 
which attached men have, and he may be able to act, 
and to act for his own personal advantage, in the 
world, in cases where their prejudices would pull 
them back, but still he is without that which is the 
real sweetener of life. 

We find this very strikingly exemplified in the 
case of every man who " breaks away " from his caste 
in society. By breaking away we do not, of course, 
mean the change of station upward in society, by the 
usual means of rising in the world, or downward by 
the usual means of decline ; for the one of these may 
be highly honourable to a man, and the other may be 
neither disgrace or suffering, The man who " breaks 
away/' does it without any apparent cause, and he 
generally does it to a very great distance, — at least 
to as great a distance as the rank or class from which 
he breaks will allow him ; and how far soever he may 



AN OUTCAST. 103 

move in this way, he never alights and settles in any 
other fixed class. If the party who thus breaks 
away happens to belong to the humble states of so- 
ciety, his fall is of course among the utterly destitute, 
or he falls again into dishonesty, and pays forfeit to 
the outraged laws of that general society which he has 
first deserted and then injured. If the breaking 
away is from any of the intermediate classes, the 
friends of the party may break his fall, and prevent 
him from sinking so low in mere maintenance of his 
body as the man who is friendless. But still, he gains 
no new caste ; he is a burden to friends, a still greater 
burden to himself, and an excrescence upon society. 
If the breaking away is from the highest class of 
society, the fall is generally into the very depths of 
society — in as far as immorality is concerned; and 
when a young man of fortune conducts himself 
thus, he almost as a matter of course outrages even 
the vices of the vulgar wicked. If his property is so 
secured as that he cannot squander it, he generally 
runs his career as long as he can obtain credit by any 
means. When he can do that no longer, of course 
his companions abandon him, and he is sent "to 
grass," until his matters are retrieved. From this 
state he generally returns a very altered character, 
though we cannot positively call him an improved 
one. There are not, we believe, many instances of 
characters which had broken away from their caste 
in this manner, returning to it again as good and 
orderly men, according to the proper meaning of the 
words; but there have been not a few who have, 



104 ATTACHMENT TO CLASS. 

during the time of their retirement, shifted round 
from the phase of spendthrifts to that of misers; 
and have, before they quitted the world, made consi- 
derable additions to their estates, which they had at 
one time used every effort to squander ; — but vices in 
opposite sides of the right are so nearly allied to 
each other, that he who shifts from the one phase to 
the opposite can hardly be said to change his real 
character. 

It would answer no good purpose to cite every par- 
ticular instance of these breakings away from the 
caste or particular class of society to which a man 
ought to belong. They are so numerous that they 
will readily occur to the reader ; and the details of 
them are by no means pleasant to dwell upon. Still, 
the mere notice of them is important, as showing the 
necessity of those attachments to class which the 
majority of men form, and which, though apt to put 
them a little wrong when they are forced into dis- 
cussions involving the interests of other and opposite 
classes, are yet, upon the whole, highly useful, and 
necessary for their own guidance. Of course there 
may be error in this way as well as in the opposite, 
but it is error less closely connected with guilt. Not 
only this, but it is more than probable that a man's 
strong attachment to his class in society is in itself 
both the means and the proof of an elevation of 
character, greater in proportion as the class to which 
he belongs is higher and more honourable in society. 
That every man looks upon that to which he has a 
strong attachment as being honourable, amounts so 



IDOL OF THE CLASS. lt)5 

very nearly to a truism, that we should not require 
to mention it, were it not for the sake of the desire 
■which accompanies it, and which has the effect of 
turning it to an active virtue. Of course we do not 
allude to that silly vanity which sits down in simple 
and senseless admiration of its object, whatever that 
may be, but the ingenuous and manly feeling which 
makes him who is actuated by it desire the improve- 
ment and devotion of the object of his affections, 
whatever that object may be. A man who is thus 
actuated will not only be careful not to do any thing 
calculated to degrade that for which he has an affec- 
tion, but he will do all in his power to bring honour 
upon that subject. The proper conclusion, therefore, 
to which we are brought, upon considering that strong 
tendency which Man has to attach himself to his own 
caste or party in society, is, that this attachment, 
when properly directed, is not only valuable in itself, 
but that it is the means of very much of the real and 
substantial good of society. As proper love and 
respect by individuals to themselves and their own 
interests is the only foundation upon which the right 
discharge of their duties to society can be rested ; so 
a proper feeling of the importance of his rank, station, 
office, occupation, or whatever else may give a man 
his status in society, and in the ground of his relation 
to it, is the only foundation upon which he can rest 
his duty to all other ranks and classes. 

In this matter, however, we must be on our guard 
against mistakes. It is not the mere fact of having 
the rank, the office, or whatever else it may be, that 



106 VANITY. 

should be the ground of attachment to it. That is, 
as we have said, mere vanity ; and though there is 
an honest pride of well-doing which is not only a 
virtue in itself, but which is the parent of many 
virtues, yet vanity, whatever may be the subject of 
which we are vain, is always a vice — an indication of 
meanness of character, and a certain sign that the 
character on which it is habitually displayed is in the 
certain way to becoming more mean — if that be 
possible. 

No man will do his duty in any station, whether 
that station be high or low, if he himself does not 
consider what he has to do as a matter of great im- 
portance — as the very foremost in his thoughts. To 
this there is no exception ; and if any man feels 
otherwise, he is out of his place, and will speedily 
either break away into idleness and vice, or sink down 
into utter and hapless insignificance. The desire of 
rising in the world — that grand desire to which we 
are indebted for all the comforts and improvements 
of society, so far from being adverse to a proper feeling 
of the importance of our present occupation, is not 
fairly produced, and stands no chance whatever of 
being gratified, unless this feeling is the very founda- 
tion of it. 

And a mere feeling of the importance of that in 
which we are occupied, how high soever that feeling 
may be, is not enough : we must go much further than 
this. We must have a constant desire to do that 
which we have to do in the very best manner, — in a 
manner better than we have done it hitherto, and 



THE REAL PLEA OF MERITS. 107 

better, if possible, than is desired and expected of us. 
This is the only honest claim that we have to any ad- 
vance in society, and no one can put us in possession 
of this claim. We must fairly win it for ourselves ; 
and if we do not so win it, we have no business to 
come to the bar of society ; and, indeed, we cannot 
come there, with any expectation of advancement, 
excepting upon two grounds, neither of which is very 
creditable. In the first place, we must come before 
society in the character of beggars, which is not a 
very desirable character in any view of it. But we 
are more than simple beggars : we are unworthy and 
self- condemned beggars, who come to plead for a 
more important trust in society, upon no ground but 
that we had failed in the duties of a less important 
one. Suppose a common soldier were dismissed from 
his regiment for incapacity or neglect of his duty, with 
what face could he petition the commanding officer to 
take him back as a serjeant? Or suppose a subaltern 
to be cashiered for incapacity, how could he memo- 
rialize the War-office to gazette him as a field-officer? 
If any man were to hint at such a thing, he would be 
looked upon as a madman, and sent to Bedlam, to be 
out of the way of injuring himself or anybody else. 

In the second place, the only alternative to the 
begging is obtaining the social promotion by fraud ; 
and though this does sometimes succeed, it requires a 
training in villany which renders the success of it 
hazardous to any one except a regular student in de- 
ception ; and even if such a one should succeed, the 
continual fear that the unworthiness, which he, of 



108 STEALING STEPS IN SOCIETY. 

course, cannot hide from himself, renders his nominal 
advance a perfect bed of thorns to him. We have 
heard of characters of this description having, by im- 
pudence and duplicity united, raised themselves to 
places for which they were not qualified, either in 
knowledge or trustworthiness; and it has been de- 
scribed to us to what ludicrous shifts they were put to 
prevent the detection of their ignorance, when they 
found themselves in the company of men whom they 
knew were capable of making the dreaded discovery. 
To play the silent man, and put on the solemn looks 
of superior wisdom, will npt do upon such occasions ; 
for the silent man, when subjects of importance are on 
the tapis, is generally regarded as a profound thinker, 
who, though he takes no part in the discussion of 
what may be going on, is yet so conversant with it 
all, as that he may be appealed to as umpire upon 
any point of difficulty that may arise. This would, of 
course, be a very dangerous position in which to hide 
felt ignorance ; and therefore another method is fol- 
lowed- It is generally said of the cuttle-fish, that, 
when in danger of being captured, it discharges its 
inky fluid, and escapes in the darkness which this 
produces in the water. Now, the personages alluded 
to, when they are in fear that any one shall catch 
them in their ignorance, play the cuttle-fish : they 
are the most loud and magniloquent of the whole; 
but they contrive that what they utter, in the most 
voluble and sounding tropes, shall not only be utterly 
incomprehensible in itself, but shall so darken the 
matter at issue as that nobody shall be able to 



DUTY TO SOCIETY. 109 

comprehend it, thus verifying what is said by the 
poet : — 

" True M0-meaning puzzles more than wit." 

But though fetches of this kind occasionally suc- 
ceed, they only do so in those bubbles of an ephemeral 
nature which are broken before society has had time 
to understand them. They will not do in regular 
matters ; and it is well for the true interests, both of 
individuals and of society, that they will not. The 
success of the undeserving, in whatever way it may 
come, is always an injustice to those that really de- 
serve; and it is also a much greater injury to society 
than it is to any individual. 

That to which the natural social feeling of mankind 
points, is very different ; and if it could at all times be 
steadily kept in view, and habitually acted upon, it 
would conduce to the greatest good, both of the whole 
society and of all its members individually. That it 
is acted upon in the majority of cases, is proved by 
the fact, that, on the whole, society is advancing. To 
have a proper feeling of the importance of what each 
has to do, to act constantly upon this feeling, and to 
have it so continually in operation as that no oppor- 
tunity of learning how to do better shall be allowed 
to pass unimproved, is that which has brought the 
whole of society to its present state ; and which, per- 
severed in, may, and must, carry it to degrees of im- 
provement, compared with which its present condition, 
much as we may think of it, will be found to be only 
a relative infancy. 

III. L 



110 STUDY OF SOCIETY, 

And this would also be of considerable use, to carry 
with us as a touchstone in a searching and important 
examination of the relative progress made by the 
several ranks, classes, professions, and other sections 
into which society is divided, or rather of which it is 
composed. If, upon making a faithful examination 
of the progressive history of each of these, it were 
found that some had made great and rapid advances, 
some had moved on at a sort of average rate, and 
some had lagged behind or even retrograded, we should 
then be led to the degree of justice that had been done 
to each, and the corrections which required to be made, 
in order that all that is for the real good of society 
might move on equally and harmoniously, and at the 
most rapid rate that could reasonably be expected. 

It is true that there would be many preparations 
necessary before we could enter upon an examination 
of this kind with that fairness which its importance 
demands. There are many arts, some sciences, and 
other matters, which are merely temporary in society ; 
and which, like the fashion in dress and furniture, 
and other adventitious matters, come into fashion, 
prevail for a time, and then fade away, leaving no 
matter of reasonable philosophy with which any one 
could encounter. There are also various improve- 
ments, discoveries, and contrivances — often supposed 
to be accidental, but never so in reality — which not 
only give great impulse to some branches of social 
industry and accommodation, while no such advan- 
tages accrue to others, but which also leave them, as it 
were, over the heads of these, and cast into the shade 



AND ITS LIMITATIONS. Ill 

that which before had been looked upon as the very- 
best of its kind ? 

These considerations, and others of a nature some- 
what analogous, would render such an inquiry as that 
which we have suggested, impossible in some matters, 
and so indeterminate in others as to be of compara- 
tively little use. But they would not affect the whole 
inquiry, or even affect to any material extent that 
portion of it which would be of real use to society. 

The sciences and the arts might be left very much 
to themselves, at least in so far as their real advance- 
ment is concerned; and that for this very obvious 
reason, that no parties could be found nearly so capa- 
ble of understanding their nature or the means of 
their advancement as the persons who are actually 
engaged in them ; and they have all arrived at such 
maturity — in the ratio of their constitutional strength, 
as to be but little the better for positive legislation or 
patronage. Yet there are some matters of regulation, 
in which it might be worth while to inquire whether 
the state of the law may not stand in the way both of 
science and of art. An inquiry of this kind ma}' be 
more freely made, when it is considered that legisla- 
tion may hurt these matters, but cannot by any pos- 
sibility do them good. It is not our intention to go 
into any part of this inquiry, as we have not the 
leisure, and do not pretend to possess the multifarious 
information that would be requisite, even though we 
had; but still, we may venture to merely enumerate 
a few such points as the following : — If the duty upon 
the importation of foreign corn is in any sense of the 



112 FARMER AND MANUFACTURER. 

word a burden upon the industry of the people of this 
country — a position as to the extent of which we are 
not quite sure — does it not fall more heavily on the 
agricultural interest than any other interest in the 
country ? What raises the price of human food, raises 
the price of the food of horses also ; and agriculture 
is the branch of our national industry, which is, and 
must continue to be, most exclusively performed by 
men and animals. Mills, steam-engines, and all the 
other contrivances by which so much of the heavy 
labour of the arts is now performed, — and by which 
more and more is performed, and performed to better 
and cheaper purpose, every day, — are most abstemious 
things in the way of eating and drinking, or at all 
events they are satisfied with coal and water, articles 
which we have no occasion to import. Consequently, 
in as far as the employment of these is introduced, 
the employers are relieved from the burden of the 
price of food, whatever it may be ; and as the agri- 
culturists are not so relieved, the burden must fall 
with the greater weight upon them ; and as they must 
go to the same market for provisions as other people, 
they have no means of avoiding this additional burden. 
It is in vain to say that this falls only upon the farmer, 
and the proprietor reaps the advantage ; for, as the 
landlord can get no more from the farmer than the 
latter can afford to pay, and would only injure the 
value of his estate if he were to attempt to force it, 
no unfair burden can be laid upon the farmer, but 
which must in time come to the landlord himself, — 
and that in much shorter time than many who speak 



THE ARTS. 113 

with great confidence upon such subjects appear to be 
aware of. 

Again, there is a point connected with science into 
•which a little inquiry might be made; and that is, 
" Whether, in a country like this, w T hich turns so much 
upon the estimating of all value in money, the reward 
of scientific discoveries ought to be mere glory, when 
that of contrivances in the arts, which are often 
founded upon those very discoveries, consists of both 
glory and gain ?" Then, as to the arts themselves, it 
is allowed that our patent law 7 s are exceedingly clumsy 
and expensive, and thus, in the majority of instances, 
of no real value to the bona-jide inventor of that which 
is useful, and especially of that which is ornamental 
to the public. We enter not into the merits of these 
any more than into those of the former. We merely 
throw them out as hints that some things connected 
even with the sciences and the arts might be the 
better for a little scrutinizing observation. 

There are, however, other subjects upon w r hich there 
is more apparent contrast, and consequently more 
probability that equal justice has not been done to 
them. We need hardly say that we allude to the 
discernment of the people generally, as contrasted 
with their progress in the arts, and all that concerns 
the business and enjoyments of the present life. We 
can find clever artisans and skilful men of business 
any where ; and there is no lack of improvement in 
any kind of accommodation, or in any of the bodily 
comforts ; but, with some splendid exceptions no 
doubt, there is a very great deficiency of intellectual 

l 3 



114 QUACKS. 

acumen, and an almost unprecedented aptness on the 
part of the public to become the dupes of quacks and 
impostors of all kinds. We do not so much allude to 
the sums of money which are paid to these parties, 
though these must be in themselves a very consider- 
able pecuniary evil — as the sums paid for quack adver- 
tisements alone, which must be paid out of the 
gullable part of the population, would suffice to carry 
on half, if not the whole of the public works and im- 
provements which are in the country, expensive as 
many of them are. It is probable that, if these em- 
pirical announcements were put an end to, a full half 
of the country newspapers, and not a few of the 
metropolitan ones, would have to be given up as un- 
profitable speculations ; and it is not very creditable 
to the taste of the age, or pleasing to the feelings of 
a man of decent taste, that' he should not be able to 
procure the common weekly intelligence for himself 
and his family without subjecting the latter to the 
chance of the mental and moral contaminations of 
these offensive matters. 

This is only one of numerous ways in which the 
ease with which the public can be imposed upon in all 
matters of judgment is openly proclaimed ; but even 
in this one it is sufficiently glaring ; and it demon- 
strates, as clearly as a subject of the kind can admit 
of demonstration, that there is an intellectual w r ant 
somewhere, — a want which can hardly exist without 
bringing along with it a moral one of the same, or 
even of far more serious amount. In all that the 
people do for themselves, the result shows that they 



PARSON AND CLOWN. 115 

do well ; but we fear that we must add that, in all 
that is done for them, they do — or if suffer is pre- 
ferred — they suffer ill. This puts one rather forcibly 
in mind of the old story of the healthy clown, who so 
far forgot etiquette as to take the wall of his instruc- 
tor. "Sirrah! you are better fed than taught/ v ex- 
claimed the offended man of dignity. " That may be, 
sir," rejoined the clown, " for I feed myself and you 
teach me." The story ranks but as a common jest, 
and it is not in itself entitled to rank higher ; but 
still it is by no means inapplicable to a very large 
proportion of the people of Britain, and probably of 
all other countries. 

How matters could be improved in this respect is, 
however, another matter ; for if it is not done by the 
people themselves, one does not very well see how it 
can be done for them, — as it does not, at least on a 
cursory view, appear to be of a nature to which insti- 
tution or enactment can very efficiently apply. At 
all events it shows that, besides what Man can derive 
from the society in which he is placed, either in the 
way of impulse or of direction, there still remains not 
a little which he must do for himself. But we must 
leave these general matters, which are as vague as 
they are general, and take a brief survey of those 
emotions by which Man is, for weal or woe, fitted for 
acting his part in society. 



116 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE SOCIAL EMOTIONS OF MAN IMMEDIATE 

EMOTIONS. 

Every thing of a moral nature which is in any way 
connected with Man, may be said to be connected with 
him in his social capacity, and not as an individual. 
The feelings of the relation in which he stands to his 
God are purely religious, and cannot be said to have 
any thing moral mixed up with them ; for, in as far 
as the foundation of these is concerned, they are 
wholly of free grace on the part of the Almighty 
Being ; and the finite being is not capable of doing, 
neither is he required to do, any thing in the way of 
compensation upon this most sublime and solemn of 
all subjects. But, while the assurances of religion are 
thus free to Man without any moral act on his part, 
they leave him responsible for the whole of his moral 
conduct, the same as if no such religious assurance 
had been given, — only with a feeling of gratitude 
stronger than what could arise from any moral claim 
whatever ; and, therefore, with what ought to be, and 
is, in every case in which the religious assurance is 
real, more readiness, cheerfulness, and delight, in the 



SOCIAL EMOTIONS. 117 

performance of every moral duty, than he could pos- 
sibly have if this religious assurance were wanting. 
At the same time, there must be, if the feeling of the 
religious assurance is genuine, a more lively sense 
than if it did not exist, of the necessity of the per- 
formance of every moral duty, not from a principle of 
fear, but from one of gratitude : and this along with 
a distinct and habitual consciousness that failure in 
the performance of those moral duties must neces- 
sarily involve the abrogation of the religious assurance, 
and leave the man who is thus exposed to a far more 
fearful weight of eternal punishment than if he had 
perished in his original ignorance. 

Such being the case, it follows by obvious and very 
necessary consequences, that all the emotions of Man 
which, in any way, involve mental feelings, of what 
kind soever they may be, and whether they are in 
themselves pleasurable or painful, belong to what may 
be called the Social Emotions. All the Retrospective 
Emotions arising from the past, and all the Prospective 
Emotions that have regard to the future, are, there- 
fore, of this description, as well as the Immediate 
Emotions which have any moral reference. Thus, 
they include the whole of the emotions, except the 
few which we enumerated in the volume on " Man as 
a Moral and Accountable Being ;" and thus we shall 
briefly enumerate the principal ones in the order of 
these three classes or sections. 

The knowledge and conduct of these emotions is 
by far the most important part of our self-knowledge 
and self-government, both as regards our own per- 



118 IMMEDIATE SOCIAL EMOTIONS. 

sonal happiness, and as regards our conduct in that 
society to which we are under so many obligations, 
and in which the whole of our happiness and enjoy- 
ment in the present life, and the foundation of our 
eternal happiness, may be said to lie. All the pleasure 
which, as rational beings, we can enjoy, all the use- 
fulness of which we can be the instruments, and all 
the distinctions to which we can arrive among our 
fellow-men, depend upon the right conduct of the 
emotions ; and, on the other hand, all the degrada- 
tion to which we can be sunk, all the follies and 
crimes of which we can be guilty, and all the merited 
obloquy and execration of others, with all the agony 
and remorse of our own minds, of which we can be 
the victims, are the results of misgovernment of the 
emotions. It is to them that the allusion is made 
when it is said, " Keep thine heart with all diligence ; 
for out of it are the issues of life ;" for in all cases in 
which the " heart " is thus made allusion to, it has no 
reference to the mere bodily organ which puts the 
circulating blood in motion, but refers to the emotions 
or feelings, in contradistinction to those purely intel- 
lectual states of the mind in which, of themselves, 
there is no directly moral feeling, however they may 
lead to one emotion or to one modification of an emo- 
tion rather than to another. 

Immediate Social Emotions. — The emotions 
which come under this denomination are the simplest 
of all our moral emotions. They have no obvious 
reference either to the past or the future, neither are 
all of them necessarily connected with any process of 



MORAL PHYSIOGNOMY. 119 

reasoning at the time, though they always have some 
shadowy allusion of this kind, in consequence of 
which they are much modified by the habit of the 
party, as that has been formed by his conduct and 
connexions in society. They are the emotions upon 
which the more broad and obvious distinctions of 
moral character among men are founded ; and, ac- 
cording as one or another of them predominates, that 
particular one, whatever it may be, is made the basis 
of the characteristic epithet. They are more con- 
spicuous in their outward manifestations than any of 
the other and more complex emotions ; and if any 
one of them predominate so as to affect the whole 
man, and influence the intellectual states and the 
actions, it becomes depicted in the countenance, and 
indeed shows itself in the whole air and bearing of the 
body. In as far as they are concerned, a rational sys- 
tem of moral physiognomy, or one of judging of the 
character from the face, may be formed, having a very 
considerable approximation to the truth ; but to be 
true, that system must have reference to the expres- 
sion of the features rather than to the form of them ; 
because there is no " reason " why one emotion 
should, rather than another, be connected with the 
relative size and the particular outline of any one part 
of the countenance ; and the number of instances in 
which any coincidence of this kind has been, or can 
be, observed by any individual, form so very small a 
fraction of the whole human race, that no satisfactory 
analogy can be founded upon them. 

There is another difficulty in the case : These emo- 



120 EXPRESSION 

tions arc social, that is, though the mind must be 
capable of feeling any of these, or indeed any emotion 
whatsoever, before that emotion can possibly be felt, 
yet it is the conduct of the individual in society, and 
the mutual influence which they have upon each 
other, that gives strength to any one of the emotions, 
so as to make it take the lead of all others, and be 
the basis of that character whereby the party is 
socially distinguished. Were this not the case, and 
did the features of a man's face, merely from their 
original cast, and not in consequence of any thing 
which the man had himself done, or others had done 
to him, determine that he must be under the influence, 
nay, the absolute dominion of any one emotion, or 
class of emotions, then it would be vain to talk of 
self-government ; morality would be an empty name, 
and the laws, not merely those of man, but the 
Christian precepts themselves, would be systems of 
iniquity — only the word " iniquity" would then have 
no name in the vocabulary. 

Still there is much in the expressional physiognomy 
— so much as not only to be of the most essential 
service to painters, sculptors, and other delineators of 
human character, but that we all feel a particular 
expression habitual upon the countenance, as a cer- 
tain indication of the leading character of the party. 
In the nicer shades, and in those more light and 
feeble characters which are incapable, as one would 
say, " to take hold " of any subject so that it can 
excite any deep emotion, good or bad, agreeable to 
society or the reverse, — in such it may be difficult to 



OF CHARACTER. 121 

draw any positive conclusion from the aspect; al- 
though we do come to the physiognomical conclusion 
that what we term " an unmeaning face " is the sure 
sign of a weak and insignificant character. If, how- 
ever, there is any expression so strongly marked as 
very forcibly to attract our attention, we instantly 
conclude that there is corresponding strength of cha- 
racter; and if we have had much observation of man- 
kind, we can form a tolerably correct judgment as to 
the description of character. 

We can carry our physiognomical scrutiny even fur- 
ther than the mere emotions ; for we can distinguish 
a thoughtful or intellectual man from a man of emo- 
tions, and also from an insignificant character, in 
which there is little emotion or any thing else. The 
subjects of purely intellectual states — of those states 
in which no emotion mingles — are not portrayed in 
the expression of the features ; but there is a general 
expression of thoughtfulness, which is not only easily 
distinguished from mental idleness and oblivion, but of 
which the degree of intensity may generally be known 
from the expression ; so that, to one who is a close 
and practised observer, the silent fool and the silent 
philosopher are as easily distinguished as the same 
parties are when they speak. 

If there is deep emotion with the thought, that 
emotion will be eloquent upon the features, in spite of 
silence, and of every effort to conceal it ; and, to those 
who study character in this way, it will be the more 
apparent the more that it is a habitual emotion of the 
party. The violent man, who struggles to hide his 

III. M 



122 CAUTION NECESSARY IN 

violence, shows it just as much as if he were to give 
way to all the frantic demonstrations of which the very 
excess of it is capable ; and it is the same in every 
other case. Indeed, when the immediate emotions 
are attempted to be restrained from their natural dis- 
play, they have, if in themselves of a pernicious nature, 
a worse effect upon the character than if they had the 
most ample scope for display. " If you plant anger 
in the bosom, it shall surely grow there," says a very 
old but a very true proverb ; and what is true of the 
retrospective emotions of anger, is true of all emotions 
whatsoever, be they immediate or not. The fact is, 
that the moment we make any emotion a matter of 
memory, we change it into a retrospective emotion ; 
and thus it is more fixed in the mind, and more com- 
pletely a part of the character, than if it had had its 
demonstration at the time, and thus had passed away; 
and if it is strong, it will return again and again on 
suggestion, and though this may be in secret or in 
solitude, it will stamp its impress upon the features as 
certainly as if every such mental return had been a 
public display. He who has been brooding over cruelty 
and revenge during the silent watches of the night, 
rises from his couch with more of the fiend depicted 
in his countenance than if he had run raving, dagger 
in hand, during the whole time. 

All the strong displays of emotion may therefore be 
read in the countenance, if we only study that as we 
ought to do ; but there are many cases in which our 
own immediate emotions take away or confound our 
judgment. Thus, if the lineaments of a human visage — 



JUDGING BY EXPRESSION. 123 

expression of emotion apart, and regarded simply in 
their statuary — strike us as very much the reverse of 
beautiful, we shall be disposed to undervalue any good 
they may indicate, and shall perhaps never be able to 
do justice to the merits of the character, simply on 
account of the unfavourable impression made by the 
mere countenance. This is an involuntary wrong done 
to the party who makes the unfavourable impression ; 
but we may, in an opposite way, do an involuntary 
wrong to ourselves, which may be more serious. The 
emotion of beauty is the most pleasurable, and there- 
fore the most captivating, of ail those simple emotions 
that have no direct moral in them ; and hence it over- 
comes us, blinds us to other impressions, and confines 
our feelings to its own subject, just as the light of the 
sun, at the same time that it displays the beauties of 
the earth, conceals the glories of the heavens. In all 
cases of strong emotion of beauty, we are in danger of 
being blinded in this way ; but there is none in which 
so many are blinded, or pay so much for the opera- 
tion, as in the case of female beauty. We speak not 
of the simple immediate feeling of female beauty, for 
that is a very harmless as well as a very pleasing gra- 
tification ; but when it is borne in mind that the most 
important of all the social relations turns upon the 
admiration of females, and that mere beauty, though 
it often proves a curse, never can, in itself, be a 
blessing, the complexion of the case alters not a 
little. The very worst passions, as well as the utmost 
insignificance of character, are not only compatible 
with what is called female beauty, but there are some 



124 BEAUTY, " DEAR DECEIT." 

very cogent reasons why they should be more likely 
to be found there than anywhere else ; and though 
we do not say that it is the general, or even the ma- 
jority case, we suspect that there are many who vend 
their maledictions upon beauty during the whole term 
of their matrimonial bondage, for the hardship they 
are made to suffer, from the simple fact of having 
allowed themselves to look only at the beauty, with- 
out paying the least attention to the accompaniments, 
which are by much the most important parts of the 
whole case. 

Such are some of the immediate and direct means 
that we have of judging of the predominant emotions 
of others, and whether these be of one class or of 
another ; and though, unless we verify our judgments 
by experience in all cases where that is possible, we are 
very liable to deception, yet these means of judgment 
are not without their use. Of our own case, we are 
not so capable of judging; for unless we are absolutely 
stricken down by some emotion of remorse, or have 
been trampled down by the tyranny of others, we all 
have a natural disposition to look upon ourselves as 
models of perfection, and generally the more so the 
more turbulent and ungovernable that our emotions 
are. We are also no physiognomists in our own case; 
for the veriest villain sees an honest man in the glass, 
and the most inexorable termagant that ever set fire to 

" That conjugal petard which tears 
Down all portcullises of ears," 

sees nothing in the mirror but the placid sweetness of 
female beauty. 



MODIFICATIONS OF EMOTIONS. 125 

Farther, it is just as difficult to trace either the 
emotion or the impression of it to its original source. 
This difficulty arises, in great part, from the emotions 
not having distinct foundation in knowledge, as have 
those intellectual conclusions at which we arrive by 
processes of comparing and reasoning. The emotions 
are more easily called into action than the mental 
states. These states are all results of information, 
and can have no existence unless the requisite in- 
formation is obtained ; but the emotions are immedi- 
ately consequent upon sensation, and therefore they 
begin as soon as that begins. In Man, they are never 
wholly animal, but they are so closely connected with 
the body that they have very much the appearance of 
being animal ; and it is far more difficult to draw a 
clear line of distinction between animal impulse and 
immediate human emotion, than it is between animal 
sagacity and human deliberation and purpose. Certain 
constitutional differences of the body may make the 
emotions of one individual much more excitable, or 
may more frequently excite them, than should happen 
in the case of a body differently constituted ; but still 
the tendency of this is to produce, not one predomi- 
nating emotion, but an equal susceptibility to all 
emotions, which will be thrown upon the pleasurable 
or the painful one, according to the treatment to 
which the individual is subjected, or the line of life 
which he must follow. This is a very important 
matter for society ; for some of those who, from their 
keen sensibility of emotion, arising from the habit of 
the body, are made the very worst members of society 

m 3 



126 IMPORTANCE OF 

by one mode of treatment, though by another they 
would have become the very best. 

This, however, cannot be subjected to practical re- 
gulation, and it is even too fine for being thoroughly 
subjected to philosophical analysis. It is highly prob- 
able, that the leading bent of the emotions — that 
which decides for life both the personal and the social 
character — is confirmed before there is the least idea 
that the child is susceptible of any training whatso- 
ever ; and by this means, that which is really owing 
to treatment not suited to the constitution of the 
subject, is attributed to difference of disposition. But 
still, all that can be done upon this subject amounts 
to little more than the expression of our regret ; and 
we deal with it in the same way as we do with other 
matters, to the management of which as they ought 
to be, we are incompetent : we shun it, and say 
nothing about it. And yet, in this, the most sacred 
duty of society to the individual and to the whole, is 
herein compromised by the parent, or other party, 
to whom the charge of directing the emotions is dele- 
gated. The emotions are not only the foundation of 
the happiness or the misery of the individual, and the 
cause of the esteem or the aversion of society, but 
they are the basis of the whole character, whether in- 
tellectual or moral. The susceptibility to emotion 
which, as we have said, may depend much upon the 
original constitution of the body — though it depends 
far more upon the early treatment — is really the source 
of all that is usually called genius ; and which, if it 
were not neglected, prevented, or destroyed, in the 



THE EMOTIONS. 127 

early stages, would be genius for any one of the 
studies, pursuits, or occupations in which Man can 
engage; or, which is far better, both for the individual 
and for society, it would be that general genius which 
enables a man to know and to do all that is necessary 
f©r his own good, or for that of society, in the easiest 
and best manner. 

If this sensitiveness of any emotion is neglected, it 
is very apt to find out occupation for itself; and 
though this aptness does sometimes, now and then, 
take an advantageous turn, and produce what is called 
an original genius for some art, occupation, or other 
matter, yet the fear, nay, the truth, is, that for once 
that it takes this direction, and conducts its possessor 
to happiness — even the happiness of mental occupa- 
tion, which is really the greatest of any — it is ten 
times led into vice ; and they who should be, on ac- 
count of their natural aptitude, the most valuable 
members of the community, are turned into the 
veriest of its plagues. There is probably more of 
sterling talent among the thieves of the British me- 
tropolis than among the whole of its philosophers and 
literati — with various high personages in the scale as 
make-weights. Among the juvenile part of these 
depredators — though one cannot help lamenting the 
fact, and lamenting it the more deeply the more appa- 
rent its truth is — there is certainly more real ability 
displayed than at all the examinations of all the 
schools within the bills of mortality. Xor are we 
quite sure that all the wits of all the " circles," re- 
dolent as some of them are of these srlittcrine 



128 AN INFANT THIEF. 

appendages, could pen a couplet containing a moral 

aphorism with more truth and naivete than the 

urchin some nine or ten years old, that, when sent 

to the house of corruption — correction, we mean — for 

his moral health, a few years ago, chalked upon the 

wall this moral reflection : — 

" Him as prigs wot is'nt hisn, 
If he's cotch'd, must go to pris'n." 

The whole stress of the matter, in this most curious 
couplet, turns upon the fact of being " cotch'd ;" and 
in the escaping of that lies the whole merit, or fasci- 
nation, or whatever it may be called, of this most 
extensive and apparently incurable species of crime. 
Nor is there the least doubt that many children, of 
highly susceptible minds, and of such capable of great 
usefulness and honour, if properly treated, are at- 
tracted to this nefarious course by the ingenuity which 
is required in order to become successful in it. This 
appears to be the case at an age when — precocious as 
great, wealthy, and commercial cities are in such 
matters — the parties are all too young for having any 
of that cupidity of disposition which actuates those 
who set them on, and in the matter of which the 
Romans were never able to draw distinctly the line 
between fur and mercator. As we have noticed this 
subject, we may remark, though this is not the sys- 
tematic place for it, that the provisions for the encou- 
ragement of these pupils in crime appear to be as 
efficient as if they were expressly so meant. The 
public examination before the police magistrate, where 
the audience is composed, for the most part, of cha- 



FEELING OF VIRTUE. 129 

racters of the very worst description, is in reality an 
exhibition of talents, such as they are, before the very 
persons among whom such talents are in demand; 
and the committal to the house of correction which 
follows, is placing them at the finishing academy, so 
that they shall be fully qualified for the profession 
when the terms of their sentences expire. 

Many other instances of the perversion of the emo- 
tions of the young might be pointed out ; and these 
are probably all to be accounted for upon nearly the 
same general principle, — namely, that the honest 
occupations to which the young are in general sent, 
whether they be scholastic or anything else, have 
much of mere repellent drudgery in them, the use of 
which is not seen, and from which the emotions of 
course turn away; while, on the other hand, they have 
no attractions, excepting such as are just as likely to 
injure as to improve — if, indeed, they are not much 
more so. But we must close these general remarks, 
and turn our attention to some of the particular 
emotions. 

The Virtuous Feeling. — The approbation of 
virtue, and the dislike of vice, is perhaps the simplest, 
and certainly one of the most important of our imme- 
diate moral or social feelings; and it is one which 
perhaps more directly bears upon our relation to so- 
ciety, and our happiness and usefulness in that society, 
than any other which can be named. We do not mean 
that thorough conviction of moral good and evil, and 
their distinction, which is founded upon knowledge, 
and can be supported by argument; neither do we 



130 USE OF LAW. 

mean right and wrong, according to the laws and 
institutions of society. Both of these are highly im- 
portant matters, and essential to the right conduct of 
a man in life ; but they are both matters of study, or, 
at all events, the one is a matter of study and the 
other of obedience. The last is highly necessary, at 
least for all who have not a very clear and thorough 
knowledge of the first, which there are many who have 
not ; and thus, for their own good as well as for that 
of society, the law must keep them in order, without 
any regard to the fact of their being satisfied or not 
satisfied, either with the nature of it or with the 
extent. 

That to which we allude is a simple feeling, which 
instantly arises upon our seeing anything done, or 
being informed of the doing of it, and by means of 
which we instantly, and without any inquiry or delibe- 
ration, approve or disapprove of that which is done. 
It has no reference whatever to the party by whom 
the act is done : if it had that, it would be a retro- 
spective emotion, connected with the character of that 
party, whereas that which we now treat of is a mere 
momentary feeling. Neither has it any reference to 
the consequences of the action, whether immediate or 
remote, for that would change it to a prospective 
feeling. 

The simple feeling is very closely allied to our emo- 
tion of beauty, only there is a moral and social element 
in it which the mere feeling of beauty wants. If the 
actor in that which is done is not our associate — a 
human being — we feel, on seeing it, a simple emo- 



VIRTUE AND BEAUTY. 131 

tion of beauty, and the action itself is merely an 
instance of beautiful activity; but if tlie actor is a 
human being, we feel that it is done " by us/ 9 — that 
is, by a similar being, and this gives it a moral or 
social character. 

It must here be borne in mind that our immediate 
emotion of virtue, or its opposite, applies very imper- 
fectly, or not at all, to actions done by ourselves ; for 
in them, if we have any feeling of virtue or vice, that 
feeling does not arise immediately from the action 
itself, but is a prospective emotion, connected, in some 
way, with the consequences to which the action may 
lead. In this, again, it very closely resembles our 
feeling of beauty, or of the physiognomical expression 
of emotions, both of which are very imperfect in our 
own case. The reason of this is easily seen: the emo- 
tion which is strong enough for prompting us to the 
actual performance of an action, is also strong enough 
to hide any simple and immediate feeling of the right 
or wrong of that action. Still, this feeling is useful 
to us in the regulation of our own conduct ; for we 
will not, upon the mere impulse of the moment, per- 
form an act which we, by immediate impulse, feel to 
be wrong in another. 

Whether this immediate feeling of virtue or vice in 
human actions be correct or not, in any particular 
instance, is another matter, and depends upon the 
general character of our own mind. There is reason 
to believe that, as soon as a child begins to take notice 
of human actions, it has feelings of like and dislike 
for them without any regard to the consequences, or 



132 YOUNG EMOTION. 

indeed any knowledge of them ; but how strong this 
feeling is, what are the nature of the actions which it 
discriminates, or how soon it begins to be mixed with 
other feelings, and heightened, obscured, or changed 
by them, are points upon which, from their very 
nature, we can obtain very little information. 

There can be little doubt, however, that this is a 
subject upon which the education of example begins 
very early ; and so, whatever the natural feeling may 
be, it very speedily merges in that which we see done 
around us. When it once takes a decided bias from 
example in this way, that bias is not easily changed 
afterwards, either by new example or by precept, 
though it does remain for some time susceptible of 
change. Hence the great importance of good ex- 
ample in all that children see done ; and hence, also, 
the laxity of moral feeling among so many of those 
whose parents can afford to pay for having the first 
tendencies of their minds given by a class of persons 
not very celebrated for moral purity. 

Though this simple feeling of virtue and vice is of 
small direct influence to us in the case of our own 
actions, yet in other respects it is of very great value, 
not merely to ourselves, but through us to society. 
It has a powerful influence in the choosing of our 
companions — a choice upon which very much of our 
happiness and usefulness depends, not merely at the 
commencement of life, when it is of such importance 
in the formation of our character, and determining 
our course, but through the whole of life, even to its 
close. We naturally love those whose actions we 



SYMPATHY. 133 

approve, and avoid those whose actions are offensive to 
us; and, therefore, the keener and more immediate 
our perception of right and wrong is, we are the more 
likely, nay, the more certain, to select proper com- 
panions, and avoid such as are improper. Even if 
our notions upon this subject are a little fastidious, 
they are far better than if they were lax ; for our fas- 
tidiousness " gives us pause " — time to reflect upon 
the case, and thus lead us to that best of all decisions, 
a decision upon evidence. To be facile in this matter 
is not so bad in the immediate instance as to be wrong, 
upon the same principle that an unstable character is 
not so bad as one naturally wicked ; but the facile are 
always in the road to vice ; and the person who says 
to-day " I don't care, 55 is almost sure to be vicious to- 
morrow. But, while insensibility is a means of vice, 
extreme or marked feeling in the case of this or of 
any other of our immediate emotions, is not a virtue. 
These are all feelings which ought to lead us to think ; 
but there is not one of them upon which we should 
act without thought. They are our warnings, not our 
guide ; Our only sure guide is experience. 

Sympathy. — The feeling with others in what they 
enjoy and what they suffer, is another of the immedi- 
ate emotions ; and one which is in an especial manner 
social, as it leads us to the fate of our fellow-men, and 
makes us partakers in their joys and their sorrows ; 
by which means we increase the zest of every joy, 
and take part of the burden of sorrow upon our own 
shoulders. 

Sympathy is at once the most universal and the 

III* N 



134 POWER OF SYMPATHY. 

most social of all our feelings. So far from being 
confined to the object of the moment, to the human 
beings that we know, or to the human race, it extends 
to the utmost limits of our knowledge, and to the 
most ideal creations of the fancy. It can extend to 
all time, and over all space, and it even approaches 
eternity and infinitude. There is nothing, in short, 
which the feeling of sympathy cannot find out, and 
invest with all the gladness or the gloom of which it 
is the minister. 

It is also equally ready to give and to receive ; and 
thus, like heat and some of the other modifications of 
physical action, it equalizes itself among all subjects 
in the world of our observation and thought. The 
happy mode of sympathy is an expansion of the 
simple and personal emotion of cheerfulness until it 
embraces all men and all nature, and the sorrowful- 
ness is the same social extension of sadness. In sym- 
pathy, however, there is always a temporary cause ; 
and they who are the most susceptible to the one of 
its modes, are also the most susceptible to the other. 
The cheerful are not necessarily less alive to sympathy 
with suffering than the sad, though the expression of 
the emotion may be different in the two. 

Sympathy is the bond and the charm of society ; 
and, without it, the miscellaneous intercourse of the 
world would not be bearable, while the most intimate 
friends would often be at variance ; and when a breach 
was made, it is doubtful whether it could be healed 
again without this emotion. No two human beings 
are alike in the general habit of their minds, or in 



USE OF SYMPATHY. 135 

their thoughts upon any one subject. On the con- 
trary, they are very often in direct opposition, and 
each is equally convinced that himself and himself 
alone is in the right. If sympathy were blotted out 
of the catalogue of the feelings, and men thus circum- 
stanced were to be brought into collision, as they are 
every day, each would be intolerable to all the rest, 
and all the rest would be intolerable to each. Quar- 
relling upon every point of contact would be the 
necessary consequence; and they would have no 
means of avoiding absolute hostilities, but by each be- 
taking himself to his own den, and enjo} T ing his own 
thoughts and pursuing his own plans there. But 
sympathy comes as a messenger from heaven to re- 
concile all their differences, and turn that which else 
would be a battle-field in a banqueting-place of intel- 
lectual and moral enjoyment. The stubbornness of 
every particular opinion is subdued, the violence of 
every passion is softened, those who were too elevated 
are brought down, those who were gloomy and de- 
sponding are raised, and order, harmony, and happi- 
ness are, by the ministration of this delightful emotion, 
brought out of the very elements of discord. Nor is 
this all ; for that sympathy which man feels for man 
in society, is a benefactor as well as a blessing. The 
whole are not brought to the mere average ; for there 
is a cheerfulness and joy diffused, which makes the 
sum of enjoyment far greater than all the items when 
they are apart. The excess of all our emotions, 
whether they, when in moderation, belong to the plea- 
surable or the painful class, is in itself to some extent 



136 BENEFITS OF SYMPATHY. 

painful; and there is an agony in the intemperance even 
of joy. The sympathy which we partake in society 
abates this painful excess, and we are really happier 
than before. Thus, the assemblage of a company of 
miserables of different moods, becomes a society of 
happy men ; and this not merely when they meet for 
the purpose of relaxation and enjoyment, but in the 
common intercourse of life. Upon the angry, the 
grieved, and the desponding, the sympathetic influence 
of society is still more beneficial; and if those who are 
under the influence of more pleasing emotions are so 
numerous as to give a tone to the whole assemblage, 
the painful emotions are lost for a time, and they 
never again return with the same violence that they 
had before. 

This is the reason why, in any case of very strong 
emotion — any cause of excessive joy or excessive 
grief, we are always relieved when we impart the 
knowledge of it to a friend. Nor is a friend always 
necessary ; for, if a stranger, whom we never saw be- 
fore or may never see again, will listen to our tale of 
joy or of sorrow, we are always relieved. It matters 
not whether the sympathy is a real feeling on the part 
of the stranger, for if it is only the common courtesy 
of society it will answer just as well. Nor will it make 
much difference, if the man whose sympathy we get 
on such an occasion, is in habitual enmity with us at 
other times ; for so immediate is the relief we obtain 
from sympathy, that we do not pause to consider 
whence it comes ; we take it as if it were the free gift 
of Heaven. And it is one of the very best gifts of 



DESPAIR. 137 

Heaven — a gift but for which Man could not have 
been happy, could not indeed have lived, in society. 

There is, in truth, one agony of the mind for which 
sympathy has no balm — the agony of utter despair. 
Tins is not a feeling, but a breaking down of all feel- 
ing, in the torment of that which feels; and, therefore, 
the man who is under its influence can have no associ- 
ate, and consequently no sympathy. The sympathy 
which we feel for others, is an actual taking upon 
ourselves the feeling under which they appear to 
labour ; and unless we can thus, as it were, enter into 
then feelings, we can have no sympathy for them. 
Now, in that despair of which we speak, there are no 
degrees. Despondency may be so deep that the 
mind may appear to sink under it ; but there is no 
prostration until the despair is utter ; and from that 
there is no return to societ}*, and under it there is no 
endurance of solitude. If the strength of the mind is 
not such as to cast off the body by its own efforts > 
then the party lays violent hands upon himself; 
and, for this reason, suicide is, except in some very 
extreme cases of the more violent emotions — such as 
pride, always the act of the feeble-minded. Other 
than its fatal and final termination, we know of no 
symptom by which utter despair can be known ; and 
this termination is a consequence of the state, not the 
state itself — that state is an agony of the soul into 
which none but the eye of Omniscience can look. 

Our sympathy with the distant and the dead, and 
with the whole of nature, animate and inanimate, is 
still more wonderful than our sympathy with living 

n3 



138 MAGIC OF SYMPATHY. 

man; and, like that, it is a reciprocating emotion, 
which we can either impart or receive. To the gay 
all things are gay, and to the sorrowful all things are 
sad. One goes forth, and beholds the whole face of 
things clothed with beauty ; another sitteth down in 
the ashes and curseth his day; and yet the whole 
cause of this strange difference may be a mere momen- 
tary feeling, which has not the least reference to any 
real cause of joy or of sorrow in either party. 

If the mind is in one of its joyous moods, it signifies 
little what may be the abstract merits or the intrinsic 
value of the subjects upon which the enchanting man- 
tle of sympathy is thrown. It sits as gracefully upon 
the meanest hovel as upon the most splendid palace ; 
the barren moor is as full of delights as the choicest 
parterre ; and the wanderer who knows not where to 
lay his head, feels nature as sweet as does the first- 
born of fortune. Be the capacity, the rank, or the 
condition of the man what they may, the mood of 
sympathy can — 

" Make all nature beauty to the eye, 
And music to the ear " — 

not in the poetic fancy only, but literally and in truth. 
These are moods of the mind in which a simple grey 
stone in the wild shall be invested with more beauty 
than in the ordinary calm of indifference, we can find in 
the Medici Venus ; and when the note of a cuckoo, 
or even the croak of a raven, shall have more of 
melody in it than the most skilful player can at 
ordinary times extract from the finest instrument. 



SYMPATHY WITH NATURE. 139 

Such is the power of our imparted sympathy over the 
pleasure which we feel in inanimate things. 

But the sympathy which we can in return draw 
from nature is not less effective, and it is far more 
useful, inasmuch as it can win us from our woe, and 
restore the tone of the mind when it is all but broken 
down. This is a more complex feeling than the 
former ; and yet, like that, it is an immediate one, 
and comes to our relief without any effort or even 
wish on our part, — just as if the bountiful Author 
of nature had instilled into natural things a restoring 
balm for the wounded spirit — wounded beyond all 
healing of even the sympathy of Man. And it is great 
kindness to us and to our infirmities that there is this 
power in nature ; for there are wounds that the most 
even-tempered of us may receive at the hands of our 
fellow-men, which, ere they have been cicatrised by 
time, will bleed afresh at the sight or even at the 
thought of Man ; and if we had not nature as " the 
comforter" in such cases, the burden of our anguish 
would be too grievous to be borne. This is given to 
us for our instruction, as well as for our relief in the 
extremes of mental suffering. Nature is the grand 
museum for our study, and the grand magazine of all 
that is useful to us ; and thus, the sympathy which 
exists between us and nature, is one means by which 
we ought to be drawn, and powerfully drawn, to study 
the beauty and find out the usefulness of the several 
parts and productions of that nature which is so rich 
in usefulness and in pleasure. 

Indeed, we cannot fully enjoy the blessing which 



140 SYMPATHY WITH NATURE. 

nature can bestow upon us in the hour of need, if we 
do not prepare for it in time by the observation and 
the study of nature around us. Of those who are cast 
down and broken in spirit, whether by their own in- 
discretion or by the conduct of others, very many are 
so, solely because they have no tie whereby they can 
be bound to nature, so as to call up the sympathy of 
nature when that is required. Nor is it in the hours 
of sorrow only that this sympathy is to be desired. 
Nature, in some of her endless variety of productions, 
is always within our reach, whenever we have a mo- 
ment of leisure from the business and the duties of 
life ; and as she is always free to us, so she is always 
ready to give us that pure mental delight, in which 
there is no present weariness and no future sting. 
On the contrary, there is that in nature which sharpens 
the sense and revives the limbs, at the same time that 
it elevates and delights the mind. No repose is half 
so invigorating as waking repose, where the beauty 
and the abundance of nature are spread widely around. 
All bodily fatigue has nearly the same effect upon the 
body; and so we shall suppose that one has been 
labouring and toiling along, under the burning ardour 
of the summer sun, through many long miles of deep 
a ad narrow lanes, where nothing but a small streak 
of sky over head was to be seen. Even such lanes 
have their beauties, in the trailing shrubs, the gnarly 
and contorted roots, with here and there a plant of 
the shade, not found in more open places ; and there 
are birds, too, which flit along by very short stages, as 
if they were showing off the gracefulness of their form 



SYMPATHY WITH NATURE. 141 

and the briskness of their motions, solely for one's 
amusement. But, though there is beauty in all these 
things, it is beauty which is apt to pall, if we have a 
twelve miles' length of it unbroken by any variety ; 
and more especially if we are panting under the hot 
sun without an air stirring in our narrow and dusty 
way. But suppose that, after having had this, not 
only beyond the point of satisfaction, but up to the 
full measure of satiety, with the sun beating behind, 
reflected from the path before, and the heat radiating 
from under our feet like the breath of an oven ; — sup- 
pose this, and that our path terminates in a finely- 
margined copse upon the steep, a little wood of 
nature's own planting and tending ; and after a short 
passage through the shade of this, we come to a little 
shady glade, on the summit of a pretty high hill, 
where the margin of the copse advances right and 
left, in the form of a crescent, and fines away till it 
melts either way into the grassy slope of the hill. 
This is a " rest and be thankful," the luxury of which 
no weary wanderer would be very able to resist. 

Here, then, one reposes, and gazes with equal 
wonder and delight upon the prospect, which stretches 
far to the eastward, glowing in all the radiance of that 
sun whose beams have been so warm upon us, and 
which contrasts finely with the shadow upon the place 
of our repose. On the extreme left is a rich, cham- 
paign country, with tufted groves, clustered cottages, 
rich fields in the bloom of summer, a mansion here 
and there, and just by a placid lake in the middle 
stands a village, with its venerable church and tower. 



142 " REST AND BE THANKFUL." 

From the lake a river winds its way, now concealed 
by its banks, now expanding into little ponds, and 
ultimately discharging its waters into a land-backed 
bay, which is barely visible in the extreme distance ; 
but there is a " blink" upon the horizon which tells 
that the ocean is there. Then to the right of the 
lake and village, hill beyond hill rises with gentle 
ascent, and each advances upon the ocean with a bold 
and jutting promontory, breaking and partially con- 
cealing the line of the shore. One presents a chalky 
cliff rising in caverned grandeur, bold and perpendicular 
from the green sea at the bottom to the green earth 
on the top ; and another is black and burly, torn into 
ravines by the winter torrents, and cumbered at the 
base with its own ruins. The sea is not dead, but it 
sleeps, and there is just as much of zephyr upon it 
as ripples the surface, and fills the white sails of the 
vessels, brought, it may be, from all parts of the globe, 
which are marching along in slow and gorgeous 
majesty. Were the billows rolling mountains, and 
the surges thundering against yonder cliffs, until the 
salt spray watered the summits, it would be sublime ; 
and those mariners with whom all is now ease and 
pleasure, would be struggling for the life, fearful of 
the hidden bays, between which those headlands stand 
out as the gates of death ; but it is lovely in the hour 
of its tranquillity. All the fatigue is forgotten ; and 
the body is not merely at ease, — it is in the full tide of 
enjoyment. And every delighted sense communi- 
cates the tale of its pleasure to the mind ; and the 
mind is awakened, not merely to the sensal intelli- 



THE EFFECTS. 143 

gence, but, taking that as a basis, it rises up in its 
own strength, till earth, and sea, and sky become all 
too narrow for its range ; and it mounts up to the 
heaven — to the heaven of heavens, and pours forth 
its gratitude, at the footstool of the eternal throne, to 
Him who has made nature so full of delight and Man 
so susceptible of enjoyment. Such is the sympathy 
which Man can inspire himself with, if his mind is 
not corrupted by low and grovelling thoughts and 
habits. 

It is true that there is a contrast to each of the 
pictures, in the outlines of which we have attempted 
to touch a point here and there ; but these dark con- 
trasts are in Man himself, and not in nature. If the 
spirit is in itself what it ought to be, there is nothing 
in nature which is in the least calculated to cast it 
down; the brightness of nature is always beauty; 
and the gloom of it is glory. 

It is also worthy of remark, that the pleasure which 
Man derives from his sympathy with nature has no 
antisocial tendency, but quite the reverse. A love of 
nature is always a love of Man, — fond of society, and 
happy and cheerful in it. Nor is it difficult to see at 
least some of the reasons. The feeling of a resource 
in nature, and the experience that this is a consolation 
under the little rubs and afflictions of the world, 
tends to soften the temper ; and further than this, the 
love of nature leads directly to, and indeed involves, 
the love of Man, as the noblest work of terrestrial 
creation. 

The joyful mode of sympathy, whether with Man 



144 MODES OF SYMPATHY. 

or with the rest of nature, delightful and valuable as 
are its effects, is very apt to pass unheeded. As has 
often been remarked, smiles are the usual dress in 
which mankind pay and receive their visits; and there- 
fore the line of distinction between the smile which is 
produced by sympathetic affection, and that which is 
put on as a garment, is not very definite. It matters 
not whether it be the one or the other, for both tend 
equally to make men agreeable to each other ; and 
the suavity which is put on solely for the sake of 
appearances in society is never wholly put off, but re- 
mains in a part proportional to the cheerfulness of 
the society, and the length of time that the individual 
remains in it. It may seem that there is a little dis- 
simulation in every man's thus wearing a pleasant 
face in the society of his fellows; but the deception is 
only seeming, not real ; and unless there is some de- 
ception put on for a purpose against some member of 
the society, the concealment of the leading passions 
and purposes of the whole is a very great advantage, 
for it causes happiness where, if all the truth were 
known, there would be misery. 

But it is to the mournful mode of our sympathy 
that the attention of mankind is most strongly di- 
rected ; and though, in this mode, men are probably 
not so useful to each other, upon the whole, as they 
are in the cheerful mode, yet the instances which call 
it forth are more striking, and the cases which it 
prompts us to relieve are more imminent. Unless we 
are under the influence of some very strong emotion 
of a very opposite nature, towards the individual, we 



SYMPATHY. 145 

instantly sympathize with the suffering or the danger 
of any one who is exposed to it ; and we do this with- 
out the least reference to the claim which the party 
has for assistance, or our own capacity of giving that 
assistance. A perfect stranger will instantly run to 
pick up those that fall, without pausing a moment to 
deliberate on the propriety of doing so or his own 
ability to do it. When the scaffold is struck from 
under a murderer, or the head of a traitor is severed 
from the body, there is a thrill of horror which runs 
through the crowd, and an impulse felt by many, if 
not by all, to deliver from death even the man whom 
the laws of his country have justly, and in mercy to 
society as the expression runs, doomed to pass thus 
ignominiously out of the world. Nay, so very power- 
ful and instantaneous is the emotion of sympathy, 
that it will overcome aversion or hatred, or indeed 
any emotion whatsoever, unless that emotion is in a 
violent paroxysm. The habits of individuals may 
affect the promptness and intensity of our sympa- 
thetic emotions, as they do any or all of the others ; 
but still he is a wretch indeed who does not instantly 
% sympathize with the depth of human suffering or 
misery of any kind, especially if it bursts suddenly 
upon him. 

This emotion is of vast use in society, as it — with- 
out any statute, and without any inquiry into cha- 
racter — makes the whole of society guardians and 
protectors of each of the individual members. It is, 
however, an emotion which is not unfrequently im- 
posed upon, especially in the case of distress or suf- 
in. o 



146 LOVE AND 

fering, which can be removed by pecuniary means ; 
and this, not only in the case of those wandering 
beggars that infest the streets and lanes, displaying 
generally tenfold more distress than they really suffer, 
but in the case of more insidious beggars of all ranks, 
who impose upon the feeling with tales and expres- 
sions of heavy woes which they never in reality feel. 
There is a very offensive leaven of this sort of impos- 
ture among persons of vulgar minds, who have, in 
their youth, been contaminated by the society of the 
violent in temper : they attempt to carry their point 
by a threat to lay violent hands upon themselves, in 
the ultimate degree beyond which their very extra- 
ordinary eloquence cannot be carried, and in this they 
often succeed; but they should be allowed a little 
pause upon the threat, as not one of them would put 
it in execution. In the case of pecuniary or other 
alms-giving, there is always, also, some time for re- 
flection, as it is never quite a case of life and death 
with him who can ask for alms ; but the parties ply 
their calling in the thoroughfares, and profit by the 
mere emotion of those who have no time for reflec- 
tion. In all cases, the emotion of sympathy with a 
sufferer is invariably followed by a desire, more or 
lsss strong, to relieve that sufferer ; and whether the 
desire should or should not be acted upon, is a matter 
which belongs to the particular case. 

Love and Hate. — If taken in all their degrees, 
in all their subjects, and in all their tendencies and 
results, these are very complicated emotions ; and 
though, when we consider them as merely immediate 



HATE. 14/ 

emotions, without any reference to the actual merit 
or demerit of their subjects, they are comparatively 
simple, yet it is difficult to keep this simple condi- 
tion of them so free from the more complex ones, as 
to be able to obtain a clear notion of it. 

Indeed, it is doubtful whether, even in the most 
momentary case that we can suppose, we can regard 
either love or hate as a perfectly simple emotion. 
This is especially the case with love ; for the desire of 
good to its object is so intimately blended with this 
emotion, that we are not sure whether the antecedent 
of them can be decidedly felt without a feeling of the 
consequent. In the case of hate, it may not be quite 
the same : at all events, mankind may not be quite so 
forward in confessing their desire of harm to the 
object of their hatred as they are in confessing that 
of good to the object of their love ; and it may be 
that there are some degrees of aversion, in which the 
desire may be simply to avoid or get away from the 
object, and not to wish any positive harm to it. This 
distinction is, however, a very nice one ; and the de- 
sire of injury to the hated object follows, in general, 
so closely upon the hatred, as that it can hardly be 
termed a retrospective emotion. 

Love and hate have some analogy to the approba- 
tion of virtue and the disapprobation of vice; but they 
are much more extended in their application, and much 
more varied. Virtue is certainly a subject of love, 
and vice a subject of hate; but still there are many 
cases of love into which no feeling of virtue enters, 
and many of hate in which there is no feeling of vice. 



148 LOVE AND 

Not only this, for there are many objects, b oth of 
love and of hate, of which neither virtue nor vice can 
be predicated ; and there may be minds so perverted 
and depraved as to hate virtue and love vice, in par- 
ticular instances, if not upon the general principle. 

Independently of the Gospel commandments, to 
which we made allusion in a former chapter, it ap- 
pears that mankind are really so constituted, that love 
is an habitual feeling with them, and hate only one to 
which they are driven, as it were, of necessity. A very 
little consideration will show why we have reason to 
believe that this must naturally be the case : — The 
desire of happiness, of some kind or other, is the pre- 
dominant desire of all men ; and unhappiness is their 
general aversion. That some people have shaken 
hands with sorrow, and are so wedded to their vices> 
as to appear to make the estivation and increase of 
them an habitual study, is certainly trne ; but these 
persons have merely a perverted taste in their love ; 
and, in consequence of some waywardness of pride — 
certainly often the most whimsical of all the emotions, 
— set their affections upon that which the majority of 
men dislike. Hence, they do not follow after unhap- 
piness any more than other men do ; they have only 
strange notions of their own happiness. 

Setting them aside, as not bearing upon the main 
question, we may say that love is always a pleasurable 
emotion, and hate always a painful one. This is 
perfectly and generally true, without the slightest 
allusion to the merits or the demerits of the objects 
of either emotion. There are circumstances which 



HATE. 149 

blend with them, no doubt, which, in the cases in 
which they exist, generally heighten the pleasure of 
loving, and deepen the pain of hating ; but, indepen- 
dently altogether of these mixed emotions, there is a 
positive pleasure in the simple emotion of loving, and 
a positive pain in the simple emotion of hating, inde- 
pendent of all other feelings, and also of the nature of 
the subjects toward which either emotion is felt. 

It is impossible not to admire the beauty of this 
adaptation of pleasure and pain to the two emotions 
under notice, or how admirably it suits, both for Man 
in his individual capacity, and as a member of society. 
Love is the band by which Man is drawn toward 
every subject, whether of contemplation or of per- 
formance ; and hate merely arises upon occasions, to 
warn against that which would be dangerous in some 
way or other ; and when it has performed its office in 
this way, the more speedily that it becomes still, and 
leaves the whole activity of the mind to love, the better. 
He who hates, lays himself on a bed of thorns, of the 
torment of which the object of his hate knows and feels 
nothing ; and a continual hater cannot be other than 
a man of habitual wretchedness. Indeed, one can see 
this in the certainty and rapidity with which one fixed 
and determined hate eats into the whole mind, poisons 
every source of happiness, and makes the unhappy 
victim a torment to himself, at the same time that he 
is more a subject of laughter and pity to the rest of 
the world than any thing else. 

Still, hate is a natural emotion, and has been im- 
planted in human nature for the best and most 

o 3 



150 LOVE AND 

benevolent of purposes ; and therefore it wants only 
to be regulated, not extinguished. One who could not 
hate would be very unfit for his place in society, though 
there ought to be as few cases of it, and those of as 
short duration, as possible. Strange as it may seem, 
we often have most occasion for the vigilance of hate 
when we are the most strongly affected by the opposite 
emotion. All strong emotions are apt to blind our 
intellectual perception, and thus carry us further than 
it is safe to go ; and there is none which is so deceiv- 
ing in this way as love, because there is none which, 
in all its modes, is so pleasing. Hence, if there is in, 
or connected with, the object of our love, any circum- 
stance which gives rise to the slightest emotion of 
hate, especially of that species of hate which is allied 
to our aversion of vice, we should pay instant and 
careful attention to that ; and how softly soever the 
current which is bearing us on may sound against the 
rock, we should listen to it with far more attention 
than to the loudest and loveliest strains of the siren. 
If the warning comes even in the lowest whisper, when 
we are in the fervour of the opposite emotion, we 
may be sure that it will break forth in thunders when 
that emotion shall, as it must, settle down into the 
ordinary calm of life. Many have been miserable for 
the whole term of their lives, from not attending to a 
warning of this kind; and have had the continual 
remorse of the neglected monitor adding to the tor- 
ment of misery, all too bitter in its own reality. 

Notwithstanding such dangers as that which has 
been mentioned, and some others of which we have 



HATE. 151 

no warning, it is both our interest and our duty to 
make the range of the subjects of our love as extensive 
and as little dependent upon contingency as possible. 
Of this class, the foundation is the love of God, as the 
God of Creation and the God of Grace ; and this is a 
love for eternity, as well as for the present world. 
Next comes the love of all that God has made, from 
the stupendous system of the heavens to the minutest 
thing upon the earth. In this there is involved not only 
the love of ourselves, in the highest and most desirable 
sense of the term, but the best and most disinterested 
love of society, — the love of being useful to our 
fellow men, according to the measure of our opportu- 
nities and our means. The rest of mankind around 
us are all children of the same Almighty Father ; we 
all dwell upon the same earth, and the same subjects 
are given for our common study and our common use. 
If we do wrong to any one, we injure that of which 
ourselves are part ; and therefore, while we feel the 
honest indignation of men when we see vice, injustice, 
or any thing wrong in others, we should be doubly 
careful to avoid even the slightest tendency to the 
same in ourselves. In all this wide field of scope for 
our emotion of love, there is nothing that we can 
morally hate till we come to Man, and in him it is the 
offence only against which our indignation can either 
in reason or in justice be directed. We may and 
should shun the offender, and if he is about to injure 
others, it is our duty to prevent him ; but still, to 
extend our implacable hatred to him personally, would 



152 



LOVE AND HATE. 



only be making ourselves unhappy in the cherishing 
of a bad passion, without any good in return. 

Offences against our standards of beauty and taste, 
which are always arbitrary, and not unfrequently ab- 
surd, are apt to disquiet us much with small hatreds, 
in the practice of which we vex ourselves with the 
merest vanities. We ought to bear in mind that there 
is no beauty or opposite of beauty in created things, 
as there is in the works of our artists of whatever 
description. The beauty or the contrary is in the 
mere feeling. No two human beings can agree in 
that feeling upon any subject of beauty or taste, unless 
they had been subjected to exactly the same circum- 
stances, and had the same identical trains of sensation 
and feeling. But these things are impossible ; there- 
fore, all men must have different tastes ; and conse- 
quently none has a right to quarrel with, or hate 
another. 

We have said nothing of the relations and the 
alliances of men in society, or of the peculiar modifi- 
cations of the emotion of love that naturally arise out 
of these ; but we are speaking only of the immediate 
emotions, which are common to all the members of 
society, without any regard to the peculiar relations 
in which these members may stand to each other; 
and which relations, growing as they do out of con- 
ventional arrangements, ought not, however important 
they may be in themselves, to favour any part of the 
general question. 

When these are left out, — and even if we were to 
admit them, it cannot fail to strike the reader, how 



PRIDE AND HUMILITY. 153 

very little is that we can hate, or ought to hate, and 
the whole field of our knowledge and activity, wide as 
it is, and countless as are the objects of love, and of 
knowledge and benefaction as the reward of our love, 
with which it is stored, — within the whole scope of 
nature and revelation, and in all the adaptations of 
Man to the rest of nature, and of the rest of nature 
to Man, there is not an iota or an atom that we can 
by possibility hate, or that we can, if we have under- 
standing, cease from loving ; and this is exactly what 
we might be prepared to expect, for God is love, the 
covenant of his mercy to us is love, the creation in 
which he has placed us is love, and while we act in 
that line of duty which he has pointed out for us, we 
are under his special care, and " his banner over us 
is love." 

In society, Love follows close after sympathy. This 
brings us together, tunes all our varied emotions into 
harmony, and diffuses over the whole of us one spirit 
of cheerfulness, by which we are wound up to the due 
capacity for happiness ; and thus causes love to endear 
us all to each other, and make us fellow-workers for 
good, to ourselves and all our brethren. 

Pride and Humility. — These are the last of the 
immediate emotions which we purpose to notice as 
bearing upon Man in his social relations. It must be 
understood, however, in the case of these as well as 
in that of those already noticed, that there 'are many 
different emotions, or shades of the same general emo- 
tions, included under each of these general names ; 
and that, as is the case with the others, many of the 



154 PRIDE AND 

distinctive epithets given to these shades are exceed- 
ingly vague. 

Pride and humility are reflected emotions, that is, 
in both of them the party himself or something con- 
nected with him is the subject of the emotion. This 
gives them the appearance, certainly, of being selfish 
rather than social; but still they have enough of 
social application to bring them within this class. 
They are the feelings which a man has of the relation 
in which he stands to society ; and thus, though they 
always originate in something personal, they are 
displayed to society, and have very considerable in- 
fluence upon the conduct of Man there. 

Thus, emotions of self, if we may so call them, are 
not so immediate as those already considered. They 
are founded, not upon simple impulses, but upon 
comparisons ; and every comparison, of whatever na- 
ture it may be, always involves the notion of an 
intellectual process of some kind or other. It is to 
be understood, however, that the comparisons from 
which these feelings result, are not facts, — subjects of 
actual knowledge. They are partly feelings, and 
partly opinions raised up with those feelings. It also 
matters little to the feelings whether the judgment 
drawn from the comparison be well or ill founded, 
provided that the party is satisfied with it; and 
indeed, it very often happens that the less foundation 
there is for the feeling, the more broadly are the con- 
sequences of it displayed before society. Many men, 
who are not merely conspicuous but absolutely no- 
torious for their pride, have far more cause to be 



HUMILITY. 155 

humble ; and many men who are habitually humble, 
have the most legitimate claims to be proud. 

When the result of the comparison with society, or 
with any part of society, is — right or wrong — favour- 
able to the party, he feels an exultation and joy, 
lively in proportion to the excess by which he overtops 
the subject of the comparison ; and this joy, in its 
first and simple stages, is the immediate emotion of 
pride. If, on the other hand, he finds, upon making 
the comparison, that he does not in his own estima- 
tion come up to the standard, then he feels cast down 
and dispirited, in a degree proportionate to his felt 
inferiority; and this feeling, in its earliest and simplest 
stage, is the immediate emotion of humility. 

It is not, as we have said, necessary that the party 
should be correct in the judgment he forms of himself 
that precedes the feeling ; and there are many circum- 
stances which may tend to mislead even the man who 
wishes to be correct in his estimate. It is also 
doubtful whether many men, indeed, the majority of 
mankind, can come to this judgment with their minds 
wholly unbiassed. The comparisons of which the 
feelings are the results, give them very much the ap- 
pearance of reasoning from experience ; so that if a 
man has come to any one of the conclusions in one 
instance, he is very apt to come to the same one in 
the next. A few repetitions of this confirm it into 
a habit ; and thus the character of the man becomes 
proud or humble according as the habitual decisions 
are the one way or the other ; and this, still, without 



156 PRIDE AND 

any necessary reference to the truth or the falsehood 
of the decisions. 

Whatever we may say of the individual man or the 
individual instance, there is nothing wrong in either of 
the feelings, considered merely in itself. On the con- 
trary, they are both feelings of human nature, implanted 
in that nature by its All- wise and All-bountiful Creator, 
and only given to Man for the very best of purposes ; 
and therefore, if there is anything improper in them 
* — or, indeed, in any feeling, — the fault is in the indi- 
vidual in whom it appears, and in those who betrayed 
him into the error, if any such there were. 

Different as they are in their display, and in their 
influence upon the character, pride and humility 
originally answer very nearly the same purpose, only 
they do it by different means. The object of pride is 
to stimulate us to do better, from the feeling that we 
have already done well; and humility is a spur to 
urge us on to well-doing, from the feeling that we 
have fallen short of what we ought to have done. 
To give them effect in these, the proper modes of their 
operation, pride is a pleasurable feeling, and humility 
is a saddening, and, in so far, a painful one ; and whe- 
ther the one or the other is to be more efficient, is a 
question which must depend upon the merits of the 
particular case. "Encourage the diligent, and shame 
the idle," is, in so far, a good rule, but we doubt 
whether it is universal. For the exercise of humility, 
the whole field of knowing, of doing, and of posses- 
sion is open; and there is only one single subject 
from which the simple and honest feeling of pride is 



HUMILITY. 157 

excluded — the knowledge of God and of the relation 
in which Man stands to Him. There, there is no 
room for pride, — no ground for exultation, because 
one man is more deeply read in theology, or holds a 
higher sacerdotal office than another. The ignorant 
and the learned, the pew-opener and the prelate, are 
equal in the sight of God ; to Him they are debtors 
for all that they know and all that they are called ; 
and if any one has received more than another, he is 
so much more a debtor, and so much more will be 
demanded and exacted^of him. 

But, with the exception of this one grand and 
solemn subject, the whole of nature, of art, and of 
society, is free and open to the honest pride of Man ; 
and, so that he uses that pride as it ought to be used, 
it will certainly carry him to greater excellence than 
its opposite. But, it follows the general law of all 
active matters, whether human feelings or any thing 
else, in this — that the more effective it is for good, 
when rightly directed, the more efficient it is for evil, 
when perverted. We must also bear in mind that 
there are few^of the human feelings that have greater 
aptitude for perversion than pride; because, along 
with even the honest consciousness of self-superiority, 
there is always more or less of self-flattery or adula- 
tion that blends with it ; and all flattery is seductive, 
but self-flattery is the most dangerous of any. In 
the case of humility, there is no such danger ; it is 
a quiet, unobtrusive feeling; and thus, the only evil 
that can result from an excess of it is, to depress the 
individual below his proper level, and thus diminish 

in. p 



158 HONEST PRIDE. 

his usefulness both to himself and to society. This 
injurious degree ceases to be humility, and comes 
under the denomination of False Shame, which is in 
part an acquired habit, and in part perhaps a bodily 
infirmity. 

There is one form of pride, and one of the very 
best forms of it, which has been sometimes con- 
founded with humility, though it is very opposite in its 
nature. This is the mens conscia recti, — that inward 
consciousness of ability and willingness, and actual 
performance of a man's duty to himself and to society, 
which is satisfied with itself, and thus makes no dis- 
play, and courts no homage from the world. This is 
at once the noblest of all human virtues ; and the one 
which is most fertile in the production of great deeds 
and great acquirements, of what kind soever they 
may be. It has this advantage, too, over most if not 
all of the others, — that it cannot be counterfeited. All 
the forms of pride which have a leaning toward vice 
or weakness, require some display before the world ; 
and a man could not attempt to assume this virtue 
without making a show of the counterfeit in some 
way or other ; and this of course would, in the eyes 
of the discoverer, completely dispel the delusive 
attempt, and place the party in the unenviable cate- 
gory of the convicted vain upon false pretences. Men 
who are in possession of the genuine virtue to its 
proper extent, do not, like the very equivocal character 
eulogised by Pope, 

"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame :" 



HAUGHTINESS — VANITY. 159 

they honestly and manfully do their duty, in justice 
to their own character and to society, and never 
waste a thought either about "fame" or about 
" blushing." Instances of this character, both in the 
present times and in times gone by, will naturally 
occur to the reader ; and it will be found that they 
are firm in their purposes, and care but little either 
for the praise or the censure of the day. Their exposure 
to either or to both, — for in any length of time they 
are pretty certain of meeting with both, — depends of 
course upon the nature of the duties which they are 
called upon to perform, and of that of the professions 
in which they are engaged; but whatever may be 
their stations or their doings, they are, under all 
circumstances, the very best men in society. If it 
were necessary to name one as a specimen, perhaps 
George Washington would occur to the reader. 

The public, we had almost said the vulgar, display 
of pride — for the veriest vulgar are seldom without 
some form or degree of it, — is legion, both in its forms 
and its designations. There are, however, two leading 
types, of w r hich some notice may be taken. They are 
Haughtiness and Vanity, — the first pointing to tyranny 
of character, and the second to frivolity, — the one the 
scourge of society in its extreme cases, and the other 
the amusement. 

Haughtiness, which, however, is not a form of the 
emotion of pride, but a consequence of that emotion, 
— a peculiar direction into which pride is perverted 
by other feelings or habits which do not grow out of 
the simple emotion of pride, but are as it w r ere para- 



160 PRIDE. 

sitical upon it. The haughty man is himself his own 
idol ; but the modifications of this idolatry are very 
numerous — varying from the most unsparing tyrant 
that ever bathed a throne in blood, through an endless 
line of other tyrants, getting less and less, but not 
" beautifully" less, until they merge in the man 
whose belly is his god, and who offers sacrifice to the 
very lowest of his animal gratifications. One would 
be apt to regard the distance between turbaned tyranny 
and this as a mighty stride ; but really they are much 
nearer to each other than many other modifications 
of Man that appear to have a closer affinity ; and the 
difference of them is difference of accidental station, 
and not difference of real character. It will be recol- 
lected that the most outrageous tyranny, and the 
lowest debauchery, very often in the same personages, 
were the twin-serpents that finally strangled the 
glory of Imperial Rome ; and we may add that, where 
the first of these is found the second is seldom very 
distant. 

This is the most antisocial of all the perversions of 
pride. The noblest form that can be given to pride 
is very generally without a counsellor; but the haughty 
man has neither companion nor friend. He despises 
the whole of society ; and they, unless he is a ruler 
of slaves, with the sword of the executioner at his 
nod, pay him with abundant interest ; and even in 
spite of all the instruments of his power, the blood of 
his victims springs up in daggers around his couch ; 
so that, be his might what it may, he is always more 
miserable than Jie is mighty ; and when the rank or 



VANITY, 161 

name is lower, the might may be less, but the misery 
is not — in all characters of the kind, it is the utmost 
that they are able to bear. 

Vanity, in all its forms, is less blameable than 
haughtiness, but it is more contemptible; for, although 
we can hold the haughty tyrant in the utmost detesta- 
tion, the feeling we have against him is much too 
deep for contempt. The vain man is social, that is, 
he courts the applause of others for that which is the 
idol of his vanity; and if the world will but worship 
that to his mind, he will pay them for it according to 
his ability, even to the worshipping of the idols of 
their vanity. Thus, while the haughty man "can 
bear no brother near the throne," the vain man is 
not happy if he is without one ; and in all the modes 
of vanity, the vain associate for the purposes of 
mutual and reciprocal praise. One half of the fashion- 
able associations which spring up in society are, in 
truth, owing to this very amiable, but somewhat ludi- 
crous scion, which the weakness of human nature 
grafts upon the stock of pride. This is, of course, 
not the fundamental principle of society; but it 
is a counterfeit, which resembles it not a little in 
some particulars. The benefit to be derived from 
mutual assistance, and of union in the case of an 
effort, is probably the basis of society at its first 
forming; and among the associated vain, "Every 
man helpeth his neighbour, and sayeth to his brother, 
Be of good courage." 

Vanity exists in an almost endless number of shades, 
from an amiable weakness to a very exquisite degree 

?3 



162 PRIDE AND 

of the ludicrous. Indeed, the lighter shades of it are 
not easily distinguishable from that love of the ap- 
plause of society which is not only a virtue in itself, 
but the cause, or at all events the strengthener, of 
many of the social virtues. Perhaps there is no man 
who may not have vanity of some kind ; for even those 
high characters to whom we have alluded, that have 
no haughtiness in their exalted offices, have often 
some vanities in smaller matters — in matters too small 
for calling the more exalted parts of their characters 
into action ; and he who has neither pride nor vanity 
in carrying an important measure in the senate, or so 
conducting a warfare as to bring about an honourable 
and lasting peace, may yet be vain of a favourite horse 
or a favourite hound. So also the profound scholar 
or man of science, who looks upon that by which he 
equally enlightens and adorns mankind as the mere 
routine of every- day business, may be vain of a par- 
ticular book, or a particular instrument, or even of 
some mere point of personal appearance. We once 
knew a very able and eloquent man of science, who 
was withal no Adonis in his personal appearance, and 
who yet dyed his hair, which began to be grizzled, 
with such copious applications of nitrate of silver or 
some such preparation, that the evidence of the fact 
*lowed down his cheeks in parti-c^oured streams after 
he became heated in company. 

We are apt to look upon such matters with an eye 
of derision; but the probability is, that society is 
under considerable obligations for the course of vanity 
being directed into these comparatively trifling chan- 



VANITY. 163 

nels. If the vanity were to settle upon the higher 
pursuits of these illustrious men, it might put a stop 
to their progress there ; whereas, by retiring to the 
little matters we have mentioned, it leaves all that is 
great in them to continue in vigorous operation, for 
the increase of their own well-earned fame, and the 
real and permanent advantage of society. We find that, 
when men of small calibre have succeeded in the pro- 
duction of a little something, they run about in society 
setting forth its merits, and begging approbation for 
it, they never, by any chance, can produce any thing 
superior to it. 

These various modes of vanity also contribute vastly 
to the happiness of society, by distributing the sweet 
incense of praise to a greater number and variety. 
The number that can arrive at the very highest ex- 
cellence, either in knowing or in doing, in planning 
or in executing, must always be very limited, and if 
the world had no praise but for them, it would be 
a gloomy world indeed. But the distributive kindness 
of benignant Heaven has " tempered the blast to the 
shorn lamb/' so that there is no distinction, personal, 
acquired, or possessional, but which shall get some 
one to be vain of it, and some other one to apply the 
unction of adulation to the vanity ; and, in this way 
all are made hap ^y, and each is made happy at the 
smallest cost to nself, and with the greatest advan- 
tage to the whole. 

Such is a very brief outline of the nature and ten- 
dency of the chief of those immediate emotions, 
which bear so strongly upon Man and Society that 



164 



REFLECTION. 



they may be said to comprehend all the philosophical 
grounds of the social compact, — at least all those that 
depend upon the feelings of men towards each other. 
We have gone into the analysis and illustration of 
them a little more fully than we originally intended ; 
for which our only apology is, that when one writes 
upon such matters, it is difficult to know when to stop. 
Notwithstanding all that we have said, we feel that we 
have barely enunciated the different subjects, if indeed 
we have gone that length ; but our limits will not 
admit of any thing further. There still remain to be 
considered many more complex emotions, which in 
part arise out of these, variously modified by the 
habits of parties, and by trains of reasoning, and 
reminiscences of the past and anticipations of the 
future. These, as they are all more or less identified 
with the intellectual habit, are of much more difficult 
analysis than those upon which we have remarked y 
but we shall make a few, and a very few, observations 
on them in the next chapter. 



165 



CHAPTER V. 



SOCIAL EMOTIONS — RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

The Retrospective Emotions are, of course, 
those which relate to what is past, simply with regard 
to its effect upon the state of our minds at present, 
and without any regard to the future. They relate, 
of course, chiefly to events which have happened and 
actions which have been performed, though they may 
also relate merely to thoughts which have passed in 
our minds ; only, the emotions connected with them 
are very slight if they have not some allusion to 
actions. 

Emotions of this kind may be divided into three 
sections, according to the actors by whom the events 
to which they relate are felt or believed by us to have 
been brought about ; and whether the emotion may 
come under one or another of these three sections, 
there can be only two apposite modifications of the 
emotion itself : it may be pleasurable to us, or it may 
be painful. The degree of pleasure or of pain will, of 
course, depend on the nature of the particular emo- 
tions ; but one of them it must be in some degree or 
other. 



166 RETROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

The three ways in which actions can be performed, 
or events brought about, are these : First, they may 
not take place in consequence of the instrumentality 
of us or of any other human beings, — as, for instance, 
there may have been a very pleasant day when we 
were on a pleasure excursion in the country ; or there 
may have been a storm, accompanied by lightning 
and thunder, and the lightning may have injured us, 
or some of our party. Whatever may have been the 
result in this, or in any similar case, in which the 
pleasurable or the painful result was wholly the effect 
of causes over which no human being could have any 
control, it is very obvious that no merit or blame 
could attach to us or to any other human beings, 
how much soever we may rejoice or be sorry at the 
event. Secondly, we ourselves may have been the 
actors in all that happened either for weal or for woe 
to ourselves or to others ; and it is perfectly evident 
that, in this case, all the weal or the woe, — the feeling 
of all the happiness or all the misery which the event 
brings, must be our own ; and that we have none to 
praise or to blame in the whole transaction, whatever 
it and its consequences may have been, but ourselves, 
and ourselves only. Thirdly, there are actions and 
events brought about solely by other men, which may 
be the cause of wonder in us. These emotions are, 
of course, social ; may be of the most lively descrip- 
tion, according as we are, or even feel ourselves to be, 
affected by the events, and they may be in the same 
degree either pleasurable or painful. 

Emotions of this kind, as they are not produced by 



GLADNESS — REGRET. 167 

immediate objects of the senses, but are produced by 
the return of former mental states, in memory or 
suggestion, may not in many cases be so vivid as our 
more immediate emotions, but they are of more per- 
manent nature, and when they are in themselves cal- 
culated to be very pleasurable or very painful to us, 
they have more influence upon the rational part of 
the character, and by that means upon the relation in 
which we stand to our fellow men, and our conduct 
to them. 

Even in the first section of these emotions, those 
in which no praise or blame is due to us or to any 
other human agents, the emotions may still be social 
in their objects ; and in those cases the gladness or 
the regret — for we may use them as the appropriate 
names of the emotions — will partake a good deal of 
the nature of our sympathies, only they relate to the 
past, not to the present. When we ourselves, or 
rather that which has happened to us, is the cause 
of the emotion, the gladness or the regret may still, 
as a mere feeling, be regarded as allied to sympathy, 
only it is sympathy with ourselves in this case, in like 
manner as it is sympathy with others when the weal 
or woe of the event is to them. 

We mentioned that these retrospective emotions 
have more permanent influence than the merely im- 
mediate ones; and, the tendency of gladness is to 
produce a cheerful habit, while regret tends to pro- 
duce one which is sad and gloomy. These feelings 
are the sunshine and the shadow of human life, 
both in the individual and in society. They are not 



168 GLADNESS. 

the light and dark sides of things, as those are spoken 
of in ordinary observance; for these relate to the 
future, and it is the beam of hope which enlightens 
the side of whatever object it falls upon. 

The gladness and the gloom of which we now 
speak are the lights and shadows of the past drawn 
upon the present ; and as these are the shadows of 
what actually has been, there is a feeling of truth in 
them which makes an enjoyment of the pleasurable 
ones far more complete than the pleasure of any thing 
which is future, and upon which the die has yet to 
be cast. 

Leaving out of view great and unusual events, and 
all subjects which weaken the stronger emotions, the 
common enjoyments of life and society may be said 
to consist in those lights of gladness and shades of 
regret ; and, as they are the contrasts of each other, 
the proper distribution of the two makes life far more 
interesting than it would have been had it consisted 
of one unbroken glare of gladness from beginning to 
end. There are some persons whose lives are spent 
in perpetual smiles and garrulity, as if they found no 
woe in the world either of their own or of anybody's 
else. But such are characters of mere froth and sur- 
face, incapable alike of those nobler feelings and 
nobler deeds, in which the true honour of our na- 
ture and the full performance of our duty lies. 

What should be the proportion of light and shade, 
so as to make the world the very best both for amuse- 
ment and for enjoyment, is a problem of which no 
general solution can be given that will suit all men, or 



GLOOM. 1(39 

even all classes of men ; for that which is gladness or 
gloom to one man, may be perfect indifference to 
another ; and that which occasions deep regret in the 
fastidious, might be productive of merriment among 
minds of another character. Jn order, however, that 
the effect may be both most agreeable and most bene- 
ficial to individuals and to society, there should be a 
chiar 9 oscuro, or grouping of the lights and shadows of 
life, much in the same way and for the same reason 
as this is necessary to give a powerful and pleasing 
effect to a picture. An incessant shifting from glad- 
ness to gloom makes the character, whether of indi- 
viduals or of their aggregate or average in society, 
frivolous and insignificant. It is like a spotty pic- 
ture, all frittered down into fragments, so as to pre- 
sent no breadth upon which the eye can rest till the 
mind is properly affected. The parallel of the picture, 
and what the lights and shadows of the past ought to 
make the present in life, is so close, that one has 
only to examine what constitutes a delightful picture 
in the distribution of its lights and shadows, and we 
may be sure that an analogous distribution of glad- 
ness and gloom in life will make it the most delightful 
both to the individual and to society. We are to 
remember, however, that it is not the mere fact of 
having the gay and the gloomy colours upon the 
palette which gives the charm to the picture : it is the 
skill of the artist in the distribution of them. 

Even so, in the case of life, it is not the mere events 
of the past which can give the peculiar charm to the 
present in life. The painter must bring out the effect 

Q 



1/0 CONTRASTS OF 

here, the same as in the other case. The past is gone, 
and gone for ever, and we can never again be par- 
takers in the joys or the sorrows which are recorded 
of it. Even if we mix the deepest personal interest 
with it, that which can raise us to the pinnacle of 
exultation, or sink us to the depths of despair, the 
reality cannot come back to us. All that we can have 
of it is the mental lights and the mental shadows, or 
rather, the mere materials of which those are to be 
formed; and what the resulting picture shall be, 
whether the most enchanting and spirit-stirring, or 
whether the merest common-place daub, depends 
upon the act of the mind in the painter; and, before 
any mind can be a master in this universal art of 
painting — this limning of the tables of our own daily 
and habitual enjoyment, and taking our part in that 
of the society to which we belong, the mind must be 
skilled in its art, which it can only be by long and 
careful experience and study. 

Take an instance : — Two men shall go the same 
excursion, or undertake the same adventure in com- 
pany with each other, in quest of information and 
pleasure. It would be the same w T ere they in quest 
of any thing else ; but we take that case, as it is a 
simple one, and there are objects of the senses to 
which reference can, if necessary, be made. Well, 
the two companions set out together, travel the same 
roads, see the same sights, stop at the same hotels, 
meet the same characters ; and, in a w T ord, they are as 
much identified as if one of them were a, facsimile of 
the other. But hear their separate accounts when 



CHARACTER. 171 

they return. The one shall give you nothing but a 
few disjointed scraps, — an overcharge here, a bad 
dinner there, a squabble with a postilion, a misunder- 
standing with a fellow traveller, and other items of 
the " miseries of human life,' 5 which excite in you 
strangely mixed emotions of pity and laughter. 
The other shall, in scarcely more words than his 
companion, fling you upon the canvas the whole 
route, with all its circumstances and its attributes, 
as vividly as though you saw it with your own eyes ; 
and you shall be in raptures with it, and haply the 
more so the less you have been accustomed to such 
mental delineations ; and you shall set out on the 
same tour, enjoy it with the keenest pleasure, and 
become a lover and enjoyer of scenic effect during 
the whole of your after-life. 

Instead of this being a purely imaginary case, it is 
one of which there are many instances, not in the 
matter of pleasure tours only, but in almost every de- 
partment of human life. As an illustration, we may 
mention the vast number of visitors which the de- 
scription of Loch Katrine, in Scott's " Lady of the 
Lake," has drawn to that part of the Scottish High- 
lands, though, if we except the Trosachs and a small 
portion at the entrance, the lake is one of the tamest 
in the Highlands of Scotland ; and not for a moment 
to be compared with the grandeur of Loch Tay, or 
the picturesque wildness of Loch Maree. 

It is those feelings of the past — those lights and 
shadows reflected from that upon the present — which 
are the grand stimuli in the arts, the sciences, and all 



1/2 



STIMULI TO 



that calls forth the powers of human nature, and ren- 
ders Man useful and delightful to Man — reciprocations 
which give to variety all its interest and all its fasci- 
nation. It is this which makes the labour of life no 
burden, and its reverses and cares no misery ; and we 
cannot but admire that beautiful adaptation of our 
nature, which has made this, which occupies so much 
of our time and forms so much of our enjoyment, so 
little connected with the more powerful of our 
feelings. 

It is this love of the light and shade of the past 
thrown upon the present, which gives so much in- 
terest to the news and gossip of the day, whether 
that gossip come in the ordinary conversation of 
man, or be 

" Registered, to fame eternal, 
In deathless pages of diurnal ;" 

and though, like all matters in which there is much of 
general excitement, this may often be abused, yet it 
is, upon the whole, highly valuable; and though 
many persons may idle away upon this gossip time 
which might be better employed, yet we are not war- 
ranted in saying that it necessarily would be so ; for 
the probability is that they who make a business of 
this, would be worse employed if they were to be 
deprived of it. 

The force of this will be seen by any one who 
chooses to notice how the tide of the minds of most 
men ebbs and flows in concert with that of the news- 
paper. If there is a war, or any matter of great ex- 
citement, men are all upon the qui vive j and the 



THOUGHT AND ACTION. 1/3 

impulse which they receive from matters m which 
they have no personal interest carries them on in their 
own private matters : so that, if the war — for we shall 
take that as the maximum of excitement — does not 
come locally upon those in its present and actual 
destruction, the stimulus which it imparts to every 
thing among them may even more than compensate 
the expense — although there is, of course, no com- 
pensation to those who must endure the miser}*. 
Matters of minor import, — a contested election, an 
atrocious murder, or any thing that has a powerful 
effect upon the feelings, also produces an excitement 
which is, like the other, transferable to the occupa- 
tions of men. On the other hand, when all is still, 
where there is no public squabble and no atrocious 
crime, one may find not a few of the human race 
moping with yawns and sadness, and complaining that 
(< there is absolutely nothing." Now, in abstract 
truth, the world would be all the better if there were 
never a war, or murder, or disputed election either ; 
and yet from the pleasure and stimulus which these 
things give, and the loose condition of many when 
there are none of these, one would be tempted to 
fancy that there is a compensation even in them, 
whereby society, taken as a whole, gains as much on 
the one hand as it loses on the other. These are 
matters, however, which do not well admit of analysis 
on the principles ; and therefore we must judge of 
them by the results. 

In these observations we have considered the re- 
trospective emotions generally, in what manner soever 

q3 



1/4 CONSCIENCE. 

the past events, from the return of which to the mind 
they are produced, may be brought about, and whe- 
ther they relate to ourselves in common with the 
rest of society or no. In the simple consideration of 
them this distinction is not necessary, because, the 
effect of an event upon society is the same, what- 
ever may be the personal feeling of the actor re- 
specting it ; and thus the course of society, and the 
ordinary occupations of men, go on quite undisturbed 
by the pleasurable or the painful feelings which an 
individual may have from the review of his past 
actions. Those feelings are, however, of the utmost 
importance to the individual directly, and indirectly 
they are of importance to society ; and therefore we 
shall devote a few sentences to them. 

When the memory of that which we ourselves have 
done or omitted to do, comes to the mind in sugges- 
tion, it does not come alone and as a simple fact, as 
if it were a mere matter of course, or a point in the 
conduct of another. There is a feeling which arises 
along with it — the feeling that it is our own act or 
omission, not that of another, and that whatever the 
consequences may be, the consequences are to us and 
to us only. This feeling is a necessary result of the 
feeling of our mental identity ; and when the memory 
of what we have once done returns again to the mind, 
we can no more help feeling that it was done by us 
than we can help feeling that we are ourselves, and 
engaged in that present act or occupation in which 
all the energies both of our bodies and our minds are 
employed. Other feelings, of which the exciting 



CONSCIOUSNESS. 175 

causes are external of us, may or may not arise, ac- 
cording as those causes are brought to us ; but this is 
a feeling always within us ; and when the act with 
which it is connected returns, the feeling also returns. 
It is called Conscience, which has often been con- 
sidered as a separate power or faculty of the mind, 
but which is nothing more than the inseparable con- 
nexion of two mental states, a connexion which in 
nowise depends upon us or upon our wish, and over 
which w r e have really no more control than we have 
over the fact of our mental existence. It would be 
as vain for us to attempt to get rid of this conscience, 
as it would be to bury any thought in final oblivion ; 
and any one who chooses to try will find that the more 
he labours to forget, he only remembers the more 
readily. Conscientia, the word which we use with 
only an English termination instead of a Latin one, 
literally means "with knowledge;' 5 but con means 
a more intimate connexion than our word "with" 
does, at least in the common acceptation. Originally 
" with" had nearly the same import as con, — it is the 
participle of withan, " to bind together ;" but, in our 
common speech, we use it to signify mere accompani- 
ment, without any bond in the case. 

Our conscience of any event, is that which is bound 
to the knowledge of the event in such manner as that 
the two cannot be separated. This is the signification 
of the word, and that which is bound to the know- 
ledge of the event, is the feeling that the event is our 
act, and that the consequences, whatever they may 
be, must be to us and to us only. The act of another 



176 INFLUENCE OF 

may come back to our mind alone as a simple sug- 
gestion ; but our own act is bound to this conscious- 
ness that it is ours, and the one cannot come without 
the other. 

But there is a farther analysis to be made before 
we can understand the power and effect of conscience, 
in the common acceptation of the term. There is a 
moral feeling inherent in Man — a feeling which, like 
all our feeling, may be abandoned, or perverted, or 
improved according to circumstances ; and though at 
the time of the committing of any act, our other 
feelings may, by their greater vividness and power, 
prevent the mind from getting to the state of the 
moral feeling then ; yet we ean no more destroy this 
moral feeling than we can destroy the feeling that we 
are ourselves, or that the act we do is our own. 
No act of ours can be absolutely indifferent to this 
feeling ; and therefore the consciousness that our act 
is our own, always brings with it in suggestion the 
feeeling of the right or the wrong of that act. 

In the reminiscence — the return to the mind of 
any act of our own, there are three parts or mental 
states, which are so inseparably connected, that no 
one of them can come to mind without both the 
others ; and no two without the third one. The mere 
suggestion, — the simple fact that such an act has been 
done, comes to the mind as a mere portion of remem- 
bered knowledge ; and in so far as this part of the 
process is concerned, if the act were the same, and 
our knowledge of it the same, it would be perfectly 
the same whether done by one party or by another. 



CONSCIENCE. 177 

So also in the moral feeling toward it, and which has 
reference to the nature of the act itself, and none 
whatever to the party doing it, our moral approbation 
or disapprobation would be precisely the same, who- 
ever were the doer, or whether the act were really 
done or only planned and meditated. Those two 
parts of the compound state would, were there no 
third one, bring home no very lively feeling of the act 
to us. But the third part, the unalienable feeling that 
the act, and the moral qualities of the act, whatever 
these may be, are our own, brings the whole home 
personally to us ; and can give us more heartfelt joy, 
or keener anguish, than any thing that can otherwise 
occupy our minds. To give the full force, the one 
way or the other, there must indeed be a prospective 
emotion blended in the train of the others, or arising 
out of them ; but without this, the bare retrospect 
may be very delightful or very distressing. 

There is probably no man who can survey the whole 
of his past life without emotions of regret ; and even 
the most depraved of mankind has something upon 
the remembrance of which he can dwell with satis- 
faction. We must, therefore, take the character for 
classification according as the one or the other predomi- 
nates. If the favourable surveys predominate, we say 
that the man has an approving conscience, or a good 
conscience, and if the opposite ones prevail, we say 
that he has a condemning conscience, or an evil con- 
science. The good conscience is a source of happi- 
ness to him that feels he has it, and the bad conscience 
is a source of misery; and both the happiness and the 



178 INFLUENCE OF 

misery are to the parties themselves only, so that they 
can neither be hurt nor healed by any thing from 
without. 

In order to bring conscience into operation, either 
the one way or the other, it is not absolutely neces- 
sary that there should be an actual deed done. Were 
this essential to give conscience its effect, there would 
be small good to society ; and to the individual there 
would be nothing but misery. But the moral feeling 
arises on the contemplation of a future act, in the 
same manner as it does on the observation of a present 
or the memory of a past one j and when we meditate 
the act, the ever-wakeful feeling that that act, with 
all its qualities, shall be ours, cannot be kept back, 
Erom this it will be seen that conscience, in the strict 
sense of the term, is not the feeling which decides the 
good or the evil — the moral quality, whatever it may 
be, of that which is done or meditated. This is done 
by the moral feeling, which has reference to the 
quality of the act only, and which, abstractedly speak- 
ing, decides the cause of it whether it be ours or not. 
But conscience — the consciousness that it is ours, 
brings it home to us in a personal, and therefore a 
far more vivid manner than if it were the act of any 
one else. The moral feeling is therefore the im- 
portant part of the matter ; and it depends on quali- 
ties which may of course be made the subject of 
inquiry, — so that this feeling admits of cultivation. 
The mere consciousness that the act or the intention 
is our own, applies equally to all cases, whether they 
be morally approved or disapproved; and it admits 



CONSCIENCE. 179 

of no cultivation, and needs none. For a man to 
reason whether an act were his own or not, would be 
just about as absurd as for hiin to reason whether he 
were or w r ere not himself. It appears to be the com- 
pound nature of the whole process, and the confound- 
ing of the mere conscience with the moral feeling, 
which have led to so many mistakes upon this very 
important matter. 

It will readily be perceived by any one who chooses 
to reflect, that if our judgment of right and wrong in 
act and intention, had rested solely upon our own 
conscience, it would have had a very narrow as w r ell 
as a very unstable foundation. Our conscience is a 
very simple matter, and it is a matter that has refer- 
ence to ourselves only, and it cannot, in the nature 
of things, have reference to any one else. Therefore, 
if it had been the moral judge, we should have had as 
many standards of morality as we had people to deal 
with. But our Creator has ordered matters otherwise : 
and given us a standard of morality in our intercourse 
with our fellow-men, which is the same in the case of 
them all, as it depends on the actors themselves5 and 
not on the parties by or to whom they are done. By 
this means our moral judgment is placed on a social 
basis, not a selfish one ; and, as the principal part 
of our moral actions — indeed, we may say, the whole 
of them, — have reference to our fellow-men, it would 
have been an anomaly had the foundation of morals 
been otherwise. 

In the case of intention, or the planning of any 
action, our moral feeling is just as strong in itself, 



180 MORAL FEELING. 

and our conscience is as certain to bring it home to 
us, as when we reflect upon the act after it has been 
done, and feel the most bitter remorse at having 
done it. But still there are desires and other emotions, 
which prevent the prospective operation of conscience 
from bringing home the guilt of an error or a crime 
so forcibly to us as the retrospective emotion brings 
the remorse. The preventive power of conscience in 
bringing home the moral feeling to us, in time for 
preventing us from doing wrong, is of course a pro-' 
spective emotion ; and as such, the consideration of 
it can be better brought in afterwards. 

Independently of all prospective emotions, — of all 
hopes or fears of the future, our retrospective feelings 
of our own conduct may be either very pleasing or 
very painful to us ; and, in so far as personal happiness 
or misery is concerned, it requires no future to re- 
ward the meritorious or punish the guilty. Of course 
we speak not now of the relation between Man and his 
Maker, for in that view of the subject Man can have 
no merit. We speak of virtue and its opposite, as 
between man and man ; and in this sense there may 
be, indeed must be, either merit or demerit in every 
human action which is of any importance to society. 
Were this not the case, the enactment of laws, and 
the whole system of rewards and punishments, would 
be absurd ; and it is for this very purpose that this 
moral feeling has been implanted in our natures, for, 
in respect of his relation to his God, Man can have no 
moral feeling. 

We mention this, because some religionists have 



ERROR RESPECTING MORAL FEELING. 181 

confounded the two ; and, in their misguided zeal for 
what they fancied to be religion, have gone about to 
sap the foundation of morality. "We do not say that 
any punishment which can be inflicted upon Man for a 
crime against society, can take away the eternal 
punishment of that crime. That punishment is the 
remorse of the guilty mind — the only punishment 
which the mind can suffer, and it is enough ; and, as 
no human interference can in any wise blot out 
the memory of a guilty act, the punishment of the 
mind remains the same after the ultimate penalty of 
the law is inflicted upon the body, as if the perpetrator 
were living honourably and unsuspected in society. 
Again, as no human interference can take away the 
eternal punishment of the guilty mind ; so no effort 
of the party, or of any one in his stead, can stay the 
mental infliction until death, or even for one single 
moment. There are many of the more hardened in 
iniquity and in ignorance, who mock at futurity ; and 
it were moral injustice if these could stay the mental 
punishment for even an hour of this life. The law 
which God has written in the heart of Man partakes, 
however, of the perfect justice of all the divine laws ; 
and therefore, the morally guilty as against Man, or 
Society, in the present world, has " the arrow of the 
Almighty within him," from the very instant of the 
perpetration of his crime ; and, as no man can be 
continually intoxicated to stupor with tyrannical 
power, with sensual indulgence, or with any thing 
else, it is highly probable, nay, we may say morally 
certain, that, whatever may be the external appear - 

III. R 



182 THERE IS MORAL FEELING 

ances, the guilty pay dear in their minds for their 
indulgences, even while they are in the present life ; 
and that, too, in each moment as it passes, with- 
out the slightest allusion to the future — even to 
the daily to-morrow of our common reckoning of 
time. 

Such is the avenging power of that law of nature 
which the Almighty has written upon the human 
mind, even in its very constitution, that when the 
bad man, armed with power, is in the act of doing the 
very worst that he can do upon his victim, it is very 
difficult to say who is the sufferer, even at that very 
moment. The tyrant may be bad as tyrant can be, 
but still he is a man, and all his better feelings as a 
man are the slaves — the dungeon captives — of that 
one archtyrannical passion to the domination of which 
he has given them up ; and the agony of these may 
be, and often — perhaps always — is, unspeakable tor- 
ment compared to the merely physical suffering that 
he can inflict. The physical wheel often " comes full 
circle" upon those monsters of our race, and they pay 
in the sight of men for the cruelties they have per- 
petrated; and do this amid the gratulations and 
shoutings of the spectators, that retribution has been 
made in their sight. And we grant that, as a warning 
to others, this public and physical vengeance is useful, 
and may deter others from following the same course. 
But, if we had the means of viewing the mind as we 
can view the body, and could note the state of things 
there, we should find that, even when the blood 
curdles at the mere tale of his atrocities, the veriest 



EVEN IN BAD MEN. 183 

monster of our race is an object of pity and com- 
miseration. 

In the majority of cases, the very horror that they 
excite prevents the perpetration of deeds which are 
ostensibly and glaringly cruel in their external demon- 
strations ; and it may be said with truth that, unless 
in some state of mental hallucination, no man ever 
deliberately planned one of these atrocities without 
having previously gone through a progress of iniquity. 
That which is sometimes called the passion for 
pleasure, but which in truth is the lust of criminal 
indulgence, — though not indulgence violently against 
nature, — is the usual commencement ; but, when the 
course is once fairly entered upon, the desires get the 
momentary advantage of the moral feelings, so that 
the party is beyond the means of ordinary escape 
before he is aware of his error ; and even if he does 
awaken to it, he is apt to find himself in the thraldom 
of companionships through which it is not easy to 
break. There is also a withering of the mind, pro- 
duced by the sense of the depth to which the party 
has fallen, which prevents him from regaining the 
path of virtue ; and though the path of vice may be 
painful to him, he has not strength or resolution to 
escape from it ; so seductive is the beginning, and so 
dangerous the course of criminal indulgence. 

There is one other circumstance connected with 
these feelings of retrospect which may be just noticed ; 
and that is, the effect which they have upon a man's 
bearing and conduct, and through these upon his 
prospects and progress in society. If the result is 



184 GRATITUDE 

self-approbation, the effect often is to make the indi- 
vidual cheerful, pleased with himself and every one 
else; and as the subject of his approbation, — the act for 
which he is thus pleased, — has, as we have endeavoured 
to show it must have, a reference to society, he 
naturally feels a gratitude to that society, and a dis- 
position to win yet greener laurels in its service. The 
man who finds himself reproved by the retrospect, is 
in a very different situation. He is cast down and 
dispirited ; and his feeling also is that the cause of 
this unpleasant feeling is connected with society. 
This produces an aversion to society, and consequently 
a slight degree of estrangement from it, which has a 
tendency to sink him still further than he is already 
sunk, both in spirit and in usefulness. To common 
observation, the influence of these different results of 
self- retrospection often pass unheeded ; but they are 
of very great importance in keeping individuals in the 
path of virtue, and also in making them love society, 
associate with the more virtuous part of it, and thus 
advance in honour, in usefulness, and in all the elements 
of which the social happiness of Man is composed. 

We have now to notice the third section of the 
Retrospective Emotions, namely, those which arise 
from our considering the past conduct of others, of 
which conduct we ourselves may or may not have 
been the object, according to circumstances. Of these 
there are only two, the opposites of each other, — 
gratitude, for good which we feel to have been done ; 
and anger, for evil ; but each of these admits of many 
degrees, to some of which particular names are given. 



AND ANGER. 185 

Gratitude has some resemblance to Love, and 
Anger has some to Hatred ; but there are differences 
between them, besides the mere difference in point of 
time, or in Love and Hate being immediate, and 
Gratitude and Anger being retrospective. Love is an 
emotion simply toward its object, without regard to 
any act which that object may have done ; whereas, 
there must be good done before w T e can be grateful. 
So closely are they related, however, that in some 
cases the difference between them is little else than 
one of time. The original and simple emotion of 
love is nothing more than the pleasure which w r e 
derive from the contemplation of the subject which 
excites it ; and whenever this becomes a matter of 
recollection with us, there is a feeling of gratitude for 
the pleasure. We may feel gratitude, however, where 
there has not only been no love antecedent, but where 
the antecedent feeling has been the opposite ; and in 
this way, one whom we absolutely hated may, by some 
kind action to us, compel our gratitude, even more 
than we would feel bound to give if the object had 
been one that we loved. There is thus always some 
mental process, — some comparison of the nature of 
what is done with some sort of standard, — before we 
can have the emotion of gratitude, whereas w r e may 
love an object without knowing why. 

The distinction between hate and anger is nearly 
of the same kind : we may hate we know not why, 
but we always have, or fancy we have, cause when we 
are angry ; and the feeling of anger always has refer- 
ence to something done ; whereas the hate is to the 

r3 



186 GRATITUDE 

object itself. If, however, we consider the action as 
apart from the actor and the fact of its being per- 
formed, and regard it merely as a subject of thought, 
it may be either loved or hated, according to our 
feeling of the nature of it ; but, in the abstract view, 
it cannot be the subject either of gratitude or of 
anger. 

There is yet another distinction, equally applicable 
to both pairs of analogous emotions, wilich will 
perhaps convey still more clearly the idea of the 
difference between them. We can love an irrational 
animal, or a subject which is inanimate, but we can- 
not with propriety say that we are grateful to it. We 
love the horse that has carried us many a mile without 
stumbling ; we love the apple-tree which is so beautiful 
in its blossom, and so abundant and choice in its fruit ; 
we love all that gives us pleasure in nature ; but we 
cannot, with any propriety of language, say that we 
are grateful to any thing inanimate — to any thing 
that cannot understand and appreciate our gratitude. 
Gratitude is, in fact, a votive emotion, — a rendering 
of the service of our affections, and we cannot offer 
it but to something capable of receiving it. It is the 
same with hate and anger. I may hate a silly or a 
vicious book, but I cannot be angry with the book, 
though I may be with the author for the act of writing 
it. I may hate any thing whatever, the knowledge 
or the thought of which gives me pain ; but I cannot 
be angry with it, unless I have the mental conviction 
that it can understand and feel my anger. We can 
lov r e that which is perfectly passive, and from which 



AND ANGER. 18/ 

we derive pleasure by our own feeling or our own act; 
but if it goes no farther than this, we cannot be 
grateful to it; we are grateful only to that which 
gives us pleasure by its own act. We owe our ex- 
istence, and all the sweets of our existence, to the 
Being who made us ; and, therefore, our gratitude to 
Him ought to be universal. But, besides this uni- 
versal debt of gratitude to our God, we can owe no 
gratitude save to our fellow-men. We are grateful 
to the physician who restores us to health from a 
dangerous disease ; but we cannot be grateful to the 
medicine which he prescribes. We are, or we ought 
to be, grateful to the man who does us any good, be 
it what it may ; but we cannot be grateful to the good 
itself, for this plain reason — that it cannot receive our 
gratitude. 

It is the same in the case of anger; we cannot — 
rationally at least — be angry with that which cannot 
understand and feel our anger; and therefore, the 
only rational subjects of our angry emotions are 
human beings. Persons of vulgar minds very often 
confound the proper subjects of hate and anger. 
They are angry with that which can in no way feel 
their anger ; and, in consequence of this confounding 
of the emotions and their objects, they are often 
guilty of outrages which would be perfectly ridicu- 
lous, if they were not practically mischievous. One 
would naturally suppose that this confounding of 
things could be a vice only of the most neglected of 
the vulgar — of the merest outcasts of society, so to 
speak. Such, however, is not the case ; and this fact 



188 GRATITUDE AND ANGER. 

shows that it is not to nominal station, but to proper 
training and example, that we are to look for the 
presence of the virtues, and the absence of the lowest 
and most degrading of the vices. That ungovernable 
violence and untrained vulgarity of temper, which 
leads its unhappy possessors to confound the proper 
subject of anger with those against which no anger 
can rationally be felt, by no means confine the effects 
of their rabid passion to what would be legitimate 
objects of hate, even with those who have hate as one 
of their characteristic or governing emotions. When 
the furor is upon them, they discharge the effects of 
it indiscriminately around ; and when they are impo- 
tent against what stimulates them to rage, or ig- 
norant of any real stimulus, they show the vigour 
of their passion in the abuse of those whom they 
have not only reason to love, but whom they do love 
in the lucid intervals of their wretched life, and their 
magnanimity in the destruction of every thing that 
comes within their reach. 

Gratitude is one of the most pleasing of all our 
feelings ; and it is one which both our interest and 
our duty demand of us to have in continual exercise. 
There is no condition of life that can be elevated 
above gratitude, and none that can be sunk below it. 
The foundations of it are so intimately connected 
with our very nature, and our place in creation, that 
it ought to be permanent with us in all the changes 
and vicissitudes of life, let them be as great as they 
may. Our other feelings answer particular purposes, 
and have their excitement and their repose upon 



MOTIVE FOB GRATITUDE. 189 

particular occasions ; but this one should hold steadily 
on with us, in prosperity and in adversity, through 
good report and through bad. 

In the waywardness of our ignorance, this is pro- 
bably the feeling which we are most apt to neglect ; 
and yet it is the one which is especially binding upon 
us at all times and under all circumstances. Cheer- 
fulness and melancholy, love and hate, sympathy and 
indifference, and all the rest of our contrasted feelings, 
will at times alternate with each other ; but in even 
the most stormy moods of any of the other emotions, 
gratitude ought still to be our pilot. We may be 
spoiled of all our earthly possessions; we may be 
oppressed, persecuted, cast into prison, and doomed 
to ignominy and exile, all through the malignity of 
others ; we may be stricken down by disease, we may 
be wounded by the treachery of those upon whom we 
have bestowed unmixed and unwearied kindness ; but 
still, in each and all of these, and in any thing more 
than these which can be laid upon us, we have cause 
for gratitude. We ought to be grateful to our 
Creator for having given us being, and made us 
rational creatures, capable of knowing and enjoying; 
and we ought to be doubly grateful to Him for having 
made known to us the way of salvation and eternal 
happiness. This is a source of joy which the world 
can neither give nor take away, and which ought 
therefore to be our constant stay in the furnace of 
life's affliction, as well as in its most flowery path. 

This gratitude to God is not the only gratitude by 
which we ought constantly to be affected, but it is 



190 REAL FOUNDATION 

the chief and the foundation of all the rest ; and if 
we have it in full and constant exercise, there is really 
nothing in the world by which we ought to be cast 
down. When we reflect calmly and seriously upon 
the relation in which we stand to our God in the 
character of our Redeemer from eternal misery, — 
from that misery which, but for the interposition of 
his gracious mercy, we must, from the very constitu- 
tion of our nature, have suffered, we cannot fail to 
discover that for this we have more cause of gratitude 
than if we had been perfect creatures, that had no 
need of salvation and deliverance. Whether we could 
have remained in this perfect state^ is a question which 
we need not, and indeed cannot, discuss. All that we 
can say is, that such a state is perfectly incompatible 
with the nature of beings who have no knowledge 
but what they derive from experience, and who never 
know by anticipation what a day may bring forth. 
This, however, we do know, and can understand, — that 
Man, as he is now constituted and placed in the 
world, is far happier in the feeling that God has 
redeemed him, than he would have been under the 
feeling that he was perfect in himself, and needed no 
salvation. In that case he would have had no stay 
for his mind, but would have been at the mercy of 
every emotion to which the circumstances wherein 
lie was placed could give rise, A perfect control of 
circumstances would be essential to the happiness of 
a perfect man ; and this control is quite incompatible 
with the nature of a finite being. Therefore a perfect 
man could not hold the place which Man holds in the 



OP GRATITUDE. 191 

world, — and if he could, it would be continual misery 
to him. 

This is a doctrine which is not often stated, and it 
is one for the want of which the systems of theologians 
are often exceedingly ragged and absurd ; but it is a 
doctrine which is absolutely and indeed necessarily 
true. We can, of course, have no practical demon- 
stration of it, for there are no perfect men in the 
world; but we have analogical illustrations which 
show us pretty clearly how the demonstration would 
go if we could obtain it. The self-sufficient — those 
who believe that they are always in the right,- — so far 
from being the happiest of mankind, are the most 
habitually wretched. All that differs from them is 
wrong in their estimation ; and this includes all the 
rest of men and a very large majority of things. That 
which we fancy to be wrong is always disagreeable to 
us ; and thus, go where he will, or meet with whom 
he may, the man who is right and righteous in his 
own estimation meets with nothing but subjects of 
offence and censure. He sees no beauty and no 
virtue; and therefore he feels no love, no gratitude, — 
none of those kindly emotions in which alone the 
pleasure of life consists, and the absence of which 
turns it into one scene of retributive torment. Such 
a man is under the constant dominion of the very 
worst passions of human nature, and therefore he is 
equally miserable in society and unworthy of it. 

Now, as the belief of any thing, when it is com- 
plete and habitual, has precisely the same mental 
effect as the reality, it is quite evident that an actually 



192 EFFECTS OF' GRATITUDE. 

perfect man would have lived in the very same misery 
as the man who supposes that he is perfect ; and con- 
sequently, strange as it may seem to those who have 
not thought of it, perfect men could not have lived 
comfortably in society — could not have lived in society 
at all. " What ! then," it may be asked, " is the 
frailty — the vice of human nature, the bond of human 
society !" Of the " frailty, 5 ' we say yesj but of the 
"vice," we say that it has nothing to do with the 
matter at issue. We speak not of moral offences, for 
these have always the power of making the ill-doer 
miserable, and at some times in all cases, and at all 
times in some cases, they exercise this power. We 
speak of Man's relation to his God ; and of Man's 
constant source of support, in gratitude to God for 
goodness which is eternal, and high above all human 
power, or price, or praise. 

The very consideration of this, while it affords to 
Man the constant exercise of the delightful feeling of 
gratitude, makes him love society, and seek help from 
that in every case in which he feels his own weakness. 
We have, in the early chapters of this volume, gone 
at some length into the nature of the obligation which 
every man is under to society, as well as that which 
he is under to God ; and what we now state is the 
moral application, — the habitual pleasure which he 
ought to have in the enjoyment of gratitude for both. 

If these, our foundations of general and habitual 
gratitude, are firmly established in the mind, he who 
has them can never be miserable, but will at all times 
be in fitting mood for every duty and every enjoy- 



REGULATION OF GRATITUDE. 193 

ment. Not only this, but he will be alive to all the 
little gratitudes which the pleasures of nature, of 
social intercourse, and of occupation are calculated to 
excite : life will go cheerily on with him in all its 
departments and its modes ; and we need not add, that 
he who does all things cheerily must do them well. — 
Such is the emotion of gratitude, and such the pleasure 
and the profit which we all might, if we would, derive 
from its general and from its temporary exercise. 

But all our emotions are liable to perversion and 
abuse, and to this, gratitude forms no exception. 
We believe that, if gratitude to God and to society 
is habitually and properly felt, it will keep all our 
emotions in proper order, and the emotion of gratitude 
, among the rest. This, however, is more than we can 
realise in our own case, or hope for in the case of 
others ; and therefore, we must "keep our hearts with 
all diligence" in the case of gratitude as well as in 
that of our other affections. Our gratitude may be 
misplaced; and if we discover that it has been so, that 
will weaken the emotion in us ; so that, if we once 
err in being grateful where gratitude ought not to 
have been felt, oar next and necessary error will be 
not feeling grateful when we ought. There is also a 
spurious feeling, which may be termed a " beggar's 
gratitude," and which is particularly injurious to the 
character. This is that grateful return for substantial 
favours, which makes the receiver of such favours in- 
dolent, just as a beggar is lazy after an alms, or a 
predatory animal after a full meal. This species of 
gratitude is very common among those who are born 

iti* s 



194 CAUSES OF ANGER. 

to fortunes; and there are many not absolutely 
beggars, who become the more helpless and wretched 
themore that is given to them. These may be as 
much pleased with the mere act as those others upon 
whom it has the most beneficial effect ; and therefore 
gratitude, like all things else, is not be judged of by 
the mere momentary feeling, but by the effects which 
it produces upon the character and conduct. These 
are indeed the ultimate tests by which the good or 
evil of every thing must be tried, for that which does 
not make a man better cannot be a virtue. 

Anger is, of all our social emotions, the most painful 
to ourselves, and the most offensive to others ; and 
yet the indulgence of it is more apt to become a habit 
than that of any of the rest. The reason is obvious — 
or at all events it is easily pointed out. It is a 
common observation, that they for whose anger the 
fewest care, are the most frequently angry; and in 
this lies the whole of the explanation. The veriest 
outcasts that attend the markets for the purpose of 
picking up a scanty living by the performance of the 
meanest offices, are remarkable for the readiness and 
violence of their anger ; and as we advance higher in 
society, the habitually angry are always the worst at 
their trade or profession, whatever that trade or profes- 
sion may be. No matter for the pretence which he 
may set up, for a man who is often angry, is always in 
reality a bungler ; and, however the domestic brawler 
may pretend to be a notable, she is always in reality 
a slut. 

The case cannot be otherwise : it is not to the mere 



CONTEMPT FOR ANGER. 195 

anger which those against whom it is directed pay 
any deference, — it is to the cause of the anger ; and if 
in common judgment that cause is inadequate, the 
angry party always appears degraded by the passion. 
There is not a more contemptible phase of human 
nature than a violent paroxysm of imbecile anger 
from a trifling cause; and if this is repeated, the 
whole dignity of the character is gone in the estima- 
tion of every one who knows the fact. High rank or 
important office in no way diminishes the contempt 
which we feel for those who give themselves up to the 
external display of this emotion. An angry duchess 
is a far more humiliating display than an angry fish- 
woman : a queen in a fury — if fury could be predicated 
of so exalted a personage, would shake the loyalty of 
the beholder to its very foundation ; and an enraged 
parson would do more real injury to religion, than a 
waggon-load of infidel publications. 

Even when the power of the party is such as to 
cause the anger to be dreaded, that does not take 
away the contempt. It may make men conceal the 
outward expression — the contempt which they fail not 
to exhibit at the wrath of the powerless, but it fosters 
a deeper passion. The rage of the feeble does 
not alarm the fear or stir up any of the prospective 
emotions of those who behold its display ; and there- 
fore it merely excites the immediate emotion of the 
ludicrous or the pitiable, according to the condition 
and character of those by whom it is seen. When, 
however, the man of power rages, there is an emotion 
of a very different kind. He has got the bolt of 



196 EVILS OF ANGER. 

destruction in his hand ; and from the violence of his 
passions none knows exactly against whom or against 
what it may be launched. Therefore there is a general 
fear among those who know of it, and a general 
sympathy with each other ; and these produce indig- 
nation and disgust, which only rankle the more deeply 
the more necessary that their present concealment is 
to the safety of the parties. The desire of avenging 
is the next emotion to which these lead ; and thus the 
angry tyrant always produces a desire of vengeance 
upon him, whether he may ever be overtaken by that 
vengeance or not. 

This is true of all tyranny — of all anger armed with 
power, whether the extent of that power be great or 
small, public or domestic. An angry parent never 
has an obedient child, an angry master a faithful 
servant, or an angry man a trusty friend. Thus, every 
one who indulges in this passion suffers a double 
misery ; first, in the actual pain which the passion in- 
flicts, without any regard to the consequences ; and, 
secondly, in the degradation in the opinions of society 
which is always attendant upon it. No man of any 
thing like decent character indulges in the stormy 
display of this passion of his own accord ; but there 
are provocations which very few men can bear, and 
therefore the best practical rule is to avoid opportu- 
nities of anger. No man can avoid having the feeling, 
for the natural feeling is good and proper; but it 
ought never to become what is usually termed a 
passion — we ought never to allow our anger to take 
such possession of us that we lose the power of com- 



USE OF ANGER. 197 

parison, and of discerning between right and wrong. 
If we do, we are sure to repent it when the passion 
subsides ; and we are as sure to have acted wrong, if 
we have acted at all while under its influence. This 
is true in every case, let that which excites our anger 
be what it may ; but it is especially important when 
the anger is raised by something that has been done to 
ourselves. 

Still, the very anger, the excess of which so unfits 
Man for society, and so degrades him in it, is a social 
emotion — an emotion implanted in the nature of Man 
for his own good and the good of society jointly. If 
Man had been solitary, the emotion of anger could not 
be displayed, and thus could not have been said to 
exist— as an emotion w r hich nobody feels is but an- 
other name for no emotion at all. We sometimes say, 
indeed, that we are " angry 5 ' with ourselves for certain 
deeds or omissions ; but this is merely an abuse of 
language, for what we really feel is regret, and not 
anger. Even in our eternal state, whatever may 
be the nature of our communications there, and 
whether our portion shall be weal or woe, there will 
be no scope for anger, — it will be wholly gladness in 
the one case, and wholly despair in the other. 

Anger is thus wholly a social emotion ; and when 
exercised toward the proper objects? and on the proper 
occasions, it is an emotion of the greatest value to 
society. As gratitude is the bond of society, so anger 
is the governor ; and when the members of any society 
are what they ought to be, public indignation is a 
power enthroned high above all regal dignity. It is, 

s3 



198 INDIGNATION OF THE PUBLIC. 

as one would say, the vicegerent of the Almighty, 
which says, in a voice which will not be gainsaid, that 
no individual of the human race shall oppress or 
tyrannize over the rest. Even here, however, we 
must beware of the counterfeit; and, indeed, in all 
cases, anger is an emotion of such power, that it 
requires to be watched with the utmost vigilance. 
We must not confound the honest indignation of the 
well-informed public with the clamorous rage of the 
infuriated mob. The latter is as disgraceful to society 
as that intemperate anger of which we have spoken 
is to the unhappy individual who is its victim ; and in 
its consequences it may be far worse — worse, indeed, 
than the utmost which the most demoniac of individual 
tyrants can perpetrate. 

The line of distinction between them is, however, 
so clear and definite, that it can hardly be mistaken. 
Public indignation, even when it is so powerful as to 
make the thrones of oppression rock to their very 
bases from one end of the civilized world to the other, 
it is yet calm and dignified, and does no wrong, — is 
never the aggressor, even against those by whom it is 
excited. It partakes, in so far as any thing human 
can so partake, of the solemn majesty of Him who 
implanted it in the nature of Man; and though it 
is terrible in its demonstration, it is slow and re- 
luctant in its actual vengeance. With the furious 
excitement of the mob, the case is widely different. 
That is the mere froth upon the surface of society, 
blown to and fro by every gust of the wind, and 
carried hither and thither by every working of the 



FUROR OP THE MOB. 199 

waters. The more that the mob-exciting orator lies, 
so that he is loud enough in his brawling, the greater 
is his chance of infuriating his audience on to mad- 
ness and to mischief. Nor need we be in any hesita- 
tion about the reason of this ; for, the mischievous 
and the mindless are the audience of such pests, the 
one prepared to lead and the other to follow, by 
brute obedience, in all that even demon can desire. 
Thus, when they are aroused, the bloodhounds of all 
denominations are unmuzzled, and each is upon his 
own particular slot, under cover of a public purpose, 
and therefore safe from that detection which would 
find them out and betray them if they dared to go the 
tithe of the length in their private capacities. This 
is, in fact, the greatest bane of society, to the same 
extent and for the same reason that honest public 
indignation is its greatest blessing. It is far more 
mischievous in free countries than in those under 
tyrannies, even when it does not go the length of overt 
public outrage ; and perhaps the British Islands suffer 
more from this mob movement than from all other 
political causes. 

From this, its most extensive type, we can learn and 
can trace both the beneficial and the baneful mode of 
anger, down to those individual outcasts with whom we 
began. In every stage and degree, the proper measure 
is salutary in the prevention of mischief; and when 
that measure is exceeded, the actual injury done is 
much greater than that which the proper measure 
would have prevented. Even in the most justifiable 
cases of anger —in those in which it may be regarded 



200 RESTRAINING 

as a virtue — for every emotion properly directed is a 
virtue — we must beware of its continuance. It is an 
emotion which eats into the mind like a canker ; and 
therefore, though at the first our anger may be 
justifiable, or even commendable, its nature changes 
if we keep it too long. For our own comfort, there- 
fore, as well as for the peace and happiness of 
that society of which we are members, the inter- 
ests of which are our interests, and the esteem of 
which is necessary to our pleasurable and profitable 
existence, we should be guided by the maxims of the 
volume of inspiration in being " slow to anger," and 
especially in " not letting the sun go down upon our 
wrath. 55 

The emotions of which we have given an outline in 
this chapter are the leading ones which have their 
causes or excitements in that which is past, and 
their effects upon our present state, and our capacity 
and disposition for acting. As such, they bear directly 
upon our social intercourse ; and the reception with 
which we meet among our fellows, depends not a little 
upon the temper of mind in which we appear. There- 
fore, for the sake of our place and respectability in 
society, we ought as much as possible to cherish the 
pleasurable emotions, and repress the painful ones. 
We ought also to do this for our own sakes, — not 
merely to avoid the pain of the turbulent emotions, 
which is always far more than a counterbalance to any 
advantage, even momentary and imaginary advantage, 
that we can derive from them, but unfits us alike for 
the planning and the executing of any thing useful. 



OF ANGER. 201 

Short maxims are often better for practical purposes 
than long lectures, and there is one which applies 
here : — " Never regret or be angry at what can be 
helped, or what cannot be helped ; " for the first only 
hinders you from helping, and the second prevents 
you from setting about something else which you are 
capable of doing. 



202 



CHAPTER VI. 

SOCIAL EMOTIONS — PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS. 

Though, as body, Man lives in the present only, yet, 
as mind, he lives much more in the future. In this 
he differs from all the other inhabitants of the earth ; 
and this alone, although there were no other, would 
be sufficient evidence of the existence and even of the 
immortality of mind. The providence of bees and 
other storing animals has often been brought forward 
as evidences of conscious care for the future upon 
their part^ and the same has been extended to the ant, 
which lays up no store of food, and to birds and 
insects, which select or prepare fit places, or nests or 
niches, in which their young may be brought to life 
and fostered till able to shift for themselves. 

But truly, there is not any care for the future, 
or any knowledge of the future, revealed in even 
the most curious of these animal provisions. Trees, 
grasses, plants of all kinds, are just as careful for their 
seasonal appearances and their progeny, as those 
animals which are the most celebrated. No bee or 
other insect makes finer or more elaborate protections 
for its young than the deciduous trees do for the pro- 



AN INSIDIOUS ERROR. 203 

tection of their buds ; and there is just as much inten- 
tion and care in the flower preparing itself for the bee, 
as in the bee preparing itself for the flower, — that is 
to say, there is none whatever in either of them, or in 
any case which we can observe, either in the animal or 
the vegetable world. 

The whole of this famed knowledge of the future, 
and knowledge of what it is about, both as respects the 
present action and the future purpose of that action, 
is the misapplication of the analogy of Man. In 
general, we believe that this is well meant— that it is 
intended to set forth, and if possible to magnify, the 
wisdom and goodness of God in creation. But it has 
the very opposite effect : it destroys the beautiful 
uniformity of the law of the material creation, and 
calls in other intelligences between the Creator and 
his works — a sort of idols of the fancy, which are a 
mockery equally of that which is made and of the 
Maker. Is not the rotation of the earth upon its 
axis the grand cause of day and night? and do not 
all the productions of nature obey the alternation of 
these ? Is not the inclination of the earth's axis to 
the plane of its yearly revolution the cause of the 
changes of the seasons ? and do not all the produc- 
tion of the earth, — animal and vegetable, — obey the 
viscissitudes of these, according to the exact degree of 
their variation in different latitudes and localities? 
Shall we say, then, that the earth has a knowledge 
that day and night, and summer and winter, are to 
alternate with each other ? Does the rolling orb, the 
motion of which is so rapid that, if we could stand by 



204 ANIMAL LIFE KNOWS 

while it passed, it would be invisible, — does it, in 
thoughtful consideration of the growing and living 
motes upon its surface, kindly put them to sleep in the 
evening, and awaken them in the morning ; and does 
it blight them with the blasts of winter, and refresh 
them with the breezes of summer, in full knowledge 
and intention of so doing ? The bare supposition of 
the one or the other would be enough to startle the 
veriest dotard of those worshippers of small animals, 
who expatiate about the foresight of a fly, and the 
skill of a caterpillar; and yet, the cases are exactly 
parallel, — nor can there be found, in the whole com- 
pass of physical nature, a single instance of which the 
same may not be said with equal truth. It is only 
saying that God made them ; and that, true to the 
infinite wisdom and power which we cannot, from 
the simple contemplation of them, fail to predicate of 
Him, they are all perfect. The mathematical and 
mechanical skill of the common bee, in constructing 
its cells of the maximum capacity and strength, in the 
minimum of space and with the minimum of materials, 
has been adduced as a proof of the skill of that insect 
in the differential calculus. But the curve in which 
the bole of a tree springs from the ro©t, and which is 
imitated in light-houses that are exposed to violent 
action of the winds and waves, depends upon a far 
more intricate problem than the simple one of maxi- 
mum and minimum which the bee is said to solve ; 
and yet nobody ever gave an oak credit for its skill in 
mechanics. 

To the animals there is no past and no future ; and 



NO PAST OR FUTURE. 205 

the same may be said of Man, in as far as the mere 
body is concerned. If we have lived for any consider- 
able time, our past body — not only one but many past 
bodies, are scattered to all the winds of heaven; and if we 
shall live a considerable time longer, the bread which 
is to form part of our future body is not yet sown as 
wheat. The body comes and goes, and can have no 
remembrance of the past or anticipation of the future. 
There is not an atom of that body which was the 
corporeal instrument of the hero of Waterloo, in 
the present corporeal Duke of Wellington ; and the 
august person of the future sovereign of these realms 
is at this moment growing out of the soil, living on 
the earth, flying in the ah', or swimming in the water 
— without the slightest anticipation of the greatness 
arid the glory of which it is one day to be the sub- 
stantive symbol. 

In the case of mind, it is widely different. With 
mind, there is no receiving or giving out of any kind 
or portion of substance. We know nothing of the 
essence of mmd, because that does not in any way 
come under the cognizance of our senses ; but we do 
know that, whatever its essence may be, that must 
remain without change, from the moment of its crea- 
tion, to all eternity ; and that, whatever may be its 
essence, that essence needs no growth and no renova- 
tion, and can be subject to no exhaustion, fatigue, or 
decay. Hence, the present moment, which is the 
only life that we know of the human body, or of the 
body of any animal, as identical, is a mere point in time 
as compared with the life of the mind, — a mark 

III,- T 



206 THE HUMAN BODY KNOWS 

between the past and the future, and nothing more, 
while the body, as living and sentient, has neither 
past nor future. 

With mind, the momentary present is the mark 
between the known of life and the unknown ; for, 
though the mind has prospective emotions, it neither 
has nor can have any prospective knowledge. Know- 
ledge, being obtainable by experience only, has no 
source but in the past, or in so far as, reasoning upon 
the principle of cause and effect, we can make the 
past a mirror in which to see the present image of the 
future. This analogy of like causes in like circum- 
stances, uniformly producing like effects, without any 
regard to the mere difference of time, is the guide of 
our conduct in every thing, and the source of all our 
prospective emotions ; so that these emotions, though 
they have reference to the future, do not, and cannot, 
originate there. The body has no care for the future, 
because it has no memory of the past upon which 
such care could, by possibility, be grounded ; and it 
is solely because the mind has such memory, that it 
has emotions which are prospective as to the future. 

Though the foundation of this analogy, by means of 
which we make the past a mirror and guide to the 
future, is the actual experience of the past, yet the 
analogy itself is a matter of belief; and, although 
there are some men, of no mean pretensions in philo- 
sophy, who affect to undervalue, or even to mock, at 
belief, as a most visionary and unreal matter, as com- 
pared with what they call reason and experience, yet 
reason is in truth nothing else than belief, and without 



NO PAST OR FUTURE. 20/ 

belief experience could be of no use whatever. Take 
the very simplest case that can be adduced : — A man 
was relieved from certain uneasy sensations by taking 
food yesterday, or any number of past days ; he feels 
the same uneasy sensations to-day ; and he wishes to 
take food in order to be relieved from them. But 
this is, in truth, nothing more than a case of mere 
belief. The man cannot bring the bodily sensation 
of hunger from which he was relieved by food yester- 
day, into juxtaposition with that which he feels 
to-day, so as that the judgment, consequent upon 
the direct and simultaneous observation of any one 
of the senses, can be passed upon the two. Yester- 
day's feeling of hunger, and of the relief of that 
hunger by taking food, are not sensations to-day. 
They are not felt by the body in any sense. They 
are merely mental suggestions, called to memory, as 
we say, by the sensation of to-day. Therefore, the 
analogy is not perfect — not the comparison of 
<s quantities of the same kind/' which is essential to 
a perfect, or mathematical analogy — an analogy which 
requires no assistance from belief. The one member 
of the comparison is a bodily sensation, presently 
felt ; the other is a mere mental remembrance, in 
which the body is not affected at all ; and therefore 
we cannot say, as matter which could be mathemati- 
cally demonstrated, that what was a relief in the one 
case, must, of necessity, be a relief in the other. We 
believe that it will, and it is the constitution of our 
very nature so to believe ; and this is all that we can 
say about the matter. 



208 CONNEXION OF 

What we have adduced is a very simple instance, 
and one which refers to sensations that are of every- 
day occurrence, but it is quite conclusive ; and if an 
instance taken from sensatioD, and one in which there 
is no moral influence one way or another, be thus 
conclusive, we need not call in the aid of any one of 
a more complicated or intellectual nature. 

The fact is, that all our judgments and all our emo- 
tions, deducible or arising from the past and appli- 
cable to the future, are dependent on belief, and on 
belief only, for that which, in any way, binds the past 
to the future, and makes the present the point of pas- 
sage from the one to the other. We believe in the 
uniformity of all the observed and understood laws of 
nature ; we believe in the uniformity of the results of 
the same processes in art; we believe in the same 
consequences of the same actions in ourselves ; and, 
without this belief, which may be said to be universal, 
our past experience would be of no possible use to us 
in any respect whatsoever. Once destroy this belief 
in us, and we should thenceforth be incapable of per- 
forming a single action, with any anticipation of what 
might be the result of that action. Even they who, 
in words, deny this belief, still continue true to it in 
every action of their lives ; and thus gainsay, in all 
that they do, the doctrine of which they are such 
strenuous advocates in their speeches and in their 
writings. 

The view of the analogy of the past and the future, 
which we have endeavoured to give in these remarks, 
as plainly and practically as we can give it, is abso- 



THE PAST AND FUTURE. 209 

lutely necessary to anything like a right understanding 
of our prospective emotions. This necessity comes 
from the fact of all these emotions having their causes 
in the past, though the view, so to speak, which they 
hold out, is wholly future. They have a powerful in- 
fluence upon our present state, as well as upon our 
future plans; and therefore they are, in some respects, 
the most important of all our emotions. 

Like the rest of our emotions, the prospective ones 
are divisible into two great classes : the one of an in- 
spiriting nature, and the other having a tendency to 
depress the mind, and, in extreme cases, to unfit it 
for all action. The broad distinction of the two classes 
is that of emotions which stimulate us to actions, and 
emotions which restrain us from actions. The names 
by which they are usually distinguished from each 
other are desires and fears j and they cannot, though 
they are the opposites of each other in their effects 
upon our conduct, be classed, the one as pleasurable 
and the other as painful, as is the case with the greater 
part of our immediate and retrospective emotions, 
So far from desires being always pleasurable, they are 
often more painful than fears ; and so far from these 
two classes of emotions having contrary objects, the 
very same object often excites both desire and fear. 
So often is this mixture of those emotions the ease, 
indeed, that there is perhaps seldom any very strong 
emotion of desire which is not accompanied by some 
degree of fear. Not only this, but fear is actually a 
species of desire, or of something very similar. De- 
sires simply mean that there is a craving or want to 

t3 



210 PROSPECTIVE EMOTIONS, AND 

be supplied; and, in this sense of the word, when we 
fear, we desire, or are anxious to escape, or be saved 
from, that which we fear. 

The reason why the prospective emotions are less 
definite than either the immediate or the retrospective, 
is easily understood. The subjects of the immediate 
emotions are before us at the time when the emotions 
are excited, and we consequently know them as being, 
according to our feelings, something fixed and defi- 
nite. The subjects of the retrospective emotions are 
even more certain than those of the present ones. 
They are all past; and thus, however our feelings with 
regard to them may alter, they are all, in themselves, 
unalterable. Neither the one of those classes of emo- 
tions nor the other depends, in any way, upon be- 
lief; and, therefore, there is a certainty about them 
which we cannot find about anything which is future. 
The future, whatever it may be, and how strong soever 
may be our belief or our emotion concerning it, is 
always, to a certain extent, contingent. We may be- 
lieve ever so confidently — and we cannot, if we under- 
stand the matter, withhold the utmost confidence of 
our belief — that, in like circumstances, a like event 
must take place ; but the perfect similarity of the cir- 
cumstances is a matter in which we never can have 
absolute confidence, and this alone involves everything 
future in some degree of uncertainty. This uncertainty 
is, of itself, a source of emotion, and of very strong 
as well as very complex emotion ; and thus it keeps 
us upon the rack, and is very often greater agony to us 
than the realization of the very fear that occasions it. 



THEIR REGULATION. 211 

Our prospective emotions are, like all other emo- 
tions, beneficial when they are properly regulated; 
and, as some of the stronger ones have much more 
reference to society than they have to the individual, 
the proper regulation of them partakes more of the 
nature of a social duty than of mere personal pru- 
dence ; though, as we cannot do our duty to society, 
in the manner in which it ought to be done, without, 
in the first place, doing our duty to ourselves, per- 
sonal prudence ought never to be lost sight of in any 
one case of these emotions. It is in the adjustment of 
what are called our selfish and our social feelings, so 
that each may be in their due proportion to the others, 
that the difficulty in this matter lies; and this is a dif- 
ficulty for the proper adjustment of which no specific 
and permanent rules can be laid down — by Man. So- 
ciety is, in itself, continually changing, and changing 
the more rapidly the more advanced it is in civiliza- 
tion, so that, taking it in all its bearings, the best ad- 
justment that could be made would become antiquated 
in a short time. 

That there are some fixed principles by which our 
prospective emotions may be in so far regulated, is 
true ; but it is equally true that the emotions them- 
selves often become too strong for these, and even 
cause us to lose sight of them altogether. Not only 
this ; for our habits have a very powerful influence 
upon these emotions, and so have the circumstances 
in which we are placed ; and so powerful is the influ- 
ence of them, that, in extreme cases, it changes the 
complexion of the emotion altogether, so that, in cases 



212 GENERAL NATURE 

which do not involve any very great moral conse- 
quence, that which is evil in one man may be harm- 
less, or even actually good, in another. 

The object of every desire is some good, real or 
imaginary, according to the nature of the case, and 
especially to that of the party influenced by the desire; 
and the imaginary good may be, and very often is, a 
real evil. Naturally, we shall suppose that the desire 
is always for that which is really good, and practically, 
it no doubt appears so to the party, in even the most 
extreme case which is within the limits of sanity; but 
as all future good — all futurity, indeed — is matter of 
belief, not of certainty, the whole turns upon the 
nature of the evidence upon which this belief is 
founded ; for, according as that evidence is perfect or 
imperfect, right or wrong, so must be the belief and 
so the desire. Our natural ignorance is the grand 
cause of imperfection in the belief. The infant, in 
the age of its most complete ignorance, has its belief 
in the fitness of substances for food regulated solely 
by their immediate impression upon the senses ; and 
as men of all ages are children in that which they do 
not understand, the desires of the ignorant are chiefly 
directed to the immediate gratification of the senses, 
without much regard to future consequences to others, 
or even to themselves. 

This can scarcely be regarded as vice on the part of 
those who do it; for, morally speaking, there is no 
more vice in the man who goes wrong through abso- 
lute ignorance, than there is in the wind and the waves 
which cause a ship to founder at sea to the loss of all 



OF DESIRE. 213 

on board. As against society,, however, the conse- 
quences, whether they fall upon the party himself or 
upon others, have precisely the same effect, as if they 
were vices in the moral sense of the term: and there- 
fore society is equally interested in their prevention. 

There is another social result of this ignorance of 
the consequences of desire, which is well worthy of 
notice, — namely, that in proportion as the majority 
of society is the more advanced, and abounds the more 
m objects captivating to the senses, the ignorant por- 
tion of that society become the more improvident, and 
the more addicted to crimes against property, although 
their more turbulent emotions, as against each other, 
may be diminished in nearly the same ratio. 

In order rightly to understand this, we must bear 
in mind that mental and moral ignorance may be as 
complete in the most refined and enlightened society 
as in that where the majority are as ignorant as they. 
The objects of sensual excitement — the only excite- 
ment of which the very ignorant are susceptible — are, 
however, greatly multiplied. Thus there is an increase 
of temptation to a vast amount, — an amount equal to 
the whole improvement of the society, while of the 
moral means of resisting that temptation there is no 
increase whatsoever. The ignorant savage in the wild 
forest has little to tempt his desires of sensual gratifi- 
cation ; and the consequence is, that all his emotions 
have fair scope, and he is really as virtuous, after his 
fashion, as those who lead the ton in cultivated society 
are in theirs; and, according to the absolute moral 
standard, he would rank a little higher. 



214 REGULATION OF THE DESIRES 

But, in civilized society, the ignorant lose that which 
constitutes the vantage ground of the savage. All the 
honours and distinctions of society are tabooed to them ; 
and though there are some that escape by what may 
be called favourable accidents, yet the natural ten- 
dency of this state of things is to throw the ignorant 
upon the gratification of the senses, as their only 
means of enjoyment; and we maybe sure that the 
natural state of things will be that of the majority. 

The results in which the arts of civilized and culti- 
vated society show themselves, all tend to increase the 
temptation, without any increase of the restraint. Of 
course the ignorant can see none but the physical re- 
sults ; for, if they could appreciate the spirit of the 
enlightened part of society, they would be of that part 
themselves, — be of the learned, not of the ignorant, 
whatever might be their possessional wealth or poverty. 
But the physical results of improvement, whatever 
that improvement may be, are all that can be per- 
ceived by the ignorant; and, consequently, in their 
estimation, these constitute the whole of the improve- 
ment. The enlightened or instructed man can see 
the mental and moral advantages of such improve- 
ments, — the ignorant man can see nothing but an in- 
crease of the means and objects of sensual gratifica- 
tions ; and thus a very serious comparative injury is 
done to him, not the less serious for being uninten- 
tional, and even unconsidered, on the part of those 
who thus multiply his temptations, without any in- 
crease of his feeling of the necessity of restraint. 

It may be said, — for we believe it is the general 



IN SOCIETY. 215 

opinion among the more wealthy and influential ranks 
of society, whose knowledge of human nature has no 
necessary tendency to increase in the same ratio as 
their influence, whether that be the influence of rank 
and office, or simply that of wealth, — it may be said 
that these matters can be regulated by penal laws; but 
they who say so only proclaim how very little they 
know about the subject. If space will admit, our pur- 
pose is to say a few words upon legislation in another 
chapter ; but we may, in the meantime, remark, that a 
penal statute is the very worst preventive of crime that 
could by possibility be devised. The natural feeling 
of every man revolts at the thought of the bondage ; 
and thus the statute has no moral influence whatever, 
but rather the contrary. If the punishment which the 
law awards be great in proportion to the crime, which 
is very apt to be the case, then the daring are actually 
up in arms against the statute, and glory in the breach 
of it. It may be, that, in some cases, although cer- 
tainly not in all, this may be the triumph of a bad 
feeling over a law which is both intended and believed 
to be wholesome in its operation. But even this 
matters not ; for the unreasoning part of the public 
sympathize with, and stand up for, one who dares the 
law, upon the very same principle that the common 
history of nations makes heroes the chief subjects of 
its eulogy, without the slightest regard to those out- 
rages and atrocities of which heroes have been, in all 
ages, the necessary instruments. So much for the 
misdirection of the desires from ignorance. 

But this is not the worst, or nearly the worst ; for 



216 EDUCATION THE WRONG WAY. 

education the wrong way does far more mischief than 
even the very extreme of ignorance, in its simple and 
direct operation. We say its simple and direct opera- 
tion ; for, though the mention of it may seem a para- 
dox, there is an indirect operation of ignorance, in 
which it actually plays the schoolmaster; and its scho- 
lars are probably more willing and apt, as well as more 
numerous, than those of wisdom. The fact is, that it 
has a more excitable part of human nature to deal 
with; and it also has the assistance of more numerous, 
more willing, and, upon the whole, more powerful 
auxiliaries. 

This follows from the fact that the emotions are not, 
like knowledge and reasoning, acquired by experience, 
but inherent in the very nature of Man ; and, there- 
fore, the more ignorant any man is, his emotions are 
the stronger in proportion to his whole character. 
Study and speculation of all kinds are inconsistent 
with the operation of the stronger emotions, espe- 
cially with those more malignant forms of them which 
take possession of the mind, and rankle there. Persons 
of information and taste, and even the virtuosi who 
find their occupation and pleasure in cherishing a few 
curious scraps, which are probably of no earthly use, 
have their minds, in great part, occupied by these 
matters ; and thus^ even upon the supposition that the 
minds of all men are originally the same, the ignorant 
man must be chiefly under the influence of his emo- 
tions. 

But the prospective emotions, whether they be de- 
sires or fears, are not simple feelings of our nature, 



ENNUI. 217 

like those immediate emotions which belong to Man 
in his individual capacity, and which have no reference 
in them to the past or the future. There is, indeed, 
one state of mind, — one peculiarly distressing to the 
indolent, which can scarcely be said to amount even 
to one of these very simple emotions. It is ennui, — a 
state for which there is no very appropriate English 
name, but which, in some parts of the island, is not 
unaptly termed " know-not-whatishness." If we could 
give a definition of a mental state which is at once so 
painful and so insignificant, we would call it " the de- 
sire of desiring;" for the mind is in a state of the most 
painful anxiety, without being able to fix the desire 
upon any one object. The indolent are at all times 
troubled with this ; and it is one of the chief causes 
which drives them to dissipation. We doubt whether 
there is any mental means by which one who lapses 
into this pitiable state can be immediately relieved 
from it ; and probably some smart bodily labour is the 
best of any that can be named, and an objectless walk 
will do something, provided that it is a smart one. 

Ennui cannot, however, be, with any propriety, 
classed among the desires ; for, though the absence of 
occupation, mental or bodily, is the cause of affliction 
in that pitiable state, there is no desire of such occu- 
pation, so strong as to amount even to a wish. If 
there were a wish, that wish would increase to a will, 
and " the will would find a way." Where there is a 
desire, even in its simplest degree of a wish, there is 
always more than a mere feeling, — there is a desire 
for some object, on account of some property of that 

III. u 



218 PROCESS OF DESIRE 

object, which we believe would conduce to our happi- 
ness, if we could attain it ; and this implies a mental 
process, — a knowledge of the object, a comparison of 
our state without the object and our state with it, and 
a conclusion that the one state would be better than 
the other ; and it is upon this conclusion that the de- 
sire is founded. In the case of fear, the mental pro- 
cess is the same, only the conclusion is drawn the 
other way from that which leads to a desire ; for we 
believe that our happiness would be greater by our 
escaping from that which we fear. Up to the conclu- 
sion which determines whether our prospective emo- 
tion shall be a desire or a fear, the mental process is 
therefore the same ; and the almost endless varieties 
both of our desires and our fears are occasioned by 
the differences of the subjects which excite the emo- 
tions, and of the parties in whom they are excited. 

The subjects which are mentally compared, and from 
which the conclusion is drawn, which gives rise to a 
desire or a fear, according to the result of the com- 
parison, may be both future, or the one of them may 
be future and the other present, or even past ; but the 
one to which the emotion attaches must always be 
future. We may desire a continuation of the good, or 
fear a continuation of the evil, of yesterday, or of any 
former time, as well as that of to-day; and we may 
desire a new happiness, or fear the loss of a happiness 
or the infliction of a misery. 

But though, in every instance of desire or fear, there 
is a mental comparison and conclusion — one step, at 
least, of a process of reasoning — this is not quite the 



AND REASONING. 219 

same as in our purely intellectual reasonings for the dis- 
covery of truth. In them, if our minds have not been 
blinded by improper views of matters, we have no bias 
either way; and thus, in so far as our knowledge goes, 
we judge and decide with perfect equity. Leaving out 
of view what we may have acquired from education or 
habit, we have nothing before us but the subject upon 
which our judgment is to be given ; and thus we can 
examine the ease entirely and clearly. In the com* 
parison which leads to an emotion it is not so. In 
that, we do not act as impartial judges between sub- 
jects which are equally indifferent to us : we are judges 
in our own cause ; and this is the reason why far more 
care is requisite in such cases than in those of ordi- 
nary intellectual judgment. The real subjects of com- 
parison, are our state with, and our state without, the 
object of the emotion, — how we are to be bettered by 
that which we desire, or injured by that which we fear ; 
and, as this is not a comparison of subjects, but of 
states of the same subject, the comparison is not of so 
perfect a nature as in cases of purely intellectual rea- 
soning. Besides this, one of the subjects of the com- 
parison is always future ; and, as such, unknown to 
experience. Hence, the comparison is that of a reality 
with a belief, — things which are not of the same kind 
with each other, and which, therefore, do not admit 
of direct logical comparison, but must be compared 
with each other by means of some standard or medium 
which can be applied to both. Our feeling — our de- 
sire of happiness — is the only medium of comparison 
that we can have in such cases ; and this is a very 



220 UNCERTAINTY OF DESIRE. 

variable, and by no means a safe one. It is variable 
not only according to all the differences which can 
exist between one individual and another, but in the 
same individual; and it is so in consequence of so 
many circumstances, that they cannot be reduced to 
any general law. 

These circumstances render it utterly impossible to 
reduce the philosophy of the emotions, — that is, of 
the prospective emotions, to anything like a system. 
That which is an object of desire, and of ardent de- 
sire, with one man, is often an object of perfect indif- 
ference, or of absolute fear, with another; and the 
same contrariety of emotions often happens to the 
same individual at different times, or under different 
circumstances ; and all this may take place without 
the parties being able to assign the slightest reason 
why it should be so, — other than the very vague one, 
that mankind have no control over their desires, or 
over their fears. An army who are panic-struck, and 
run from small danger in one instance, and advance 
exultingly to face danger which is tenfold greater in 
another, can give no reason for their conduct in th e 
one case or in the other ; and an individual feels nearly 
the same difficulty in explaining why his emotions, 
and the conduct to which those emotions lead, should 
be so very different at one time to what they are at 
another. 

After the habits are formed — and they are formed 
at a much more early period of life than many people 
suppose, — after the habits are formed, they have a very 
powerful effect upon the prospective emotions. The 



VARIABLENESS OF DESTRE. 221 

reason is obvious,, though this is one of the cases in 
which it is difficult to say which is the cause and which 
the effect. The peculiar kind of mental state to which 
the party is most accustomed, is always the first to 
rise in suggestion as the subject of comparison with 
anything new; and for this reason, the very same 
subject or event which leads to a virtuous emotion in 
one man, leads to a vicious emotion in another ; and 
so on, through all the varieties of human character, 
and of the habits which give to that character those 
distinctions which make it known to others. Thus, if 
a painter, a poet, and a man whose mind was engrossed 
by the acquiring of possessions, were all to come and 
inspect the same beautiful place, they might perhaps 
be all captivated with its beauties, to the very same 
degree of intensity, but each would be captivated in a 
very different manner. The poet would look upon it 
as a subject of versification, to embellish, or to be em- 
bellished, according to the measure of his personal 
vanity; the painter would, much in the same manner, 
view it as a subject of art; and the man of posses- 
sions — of " acquisitiveness," as the cranial philoso- 
phers phrase it — would simply wish it were his own. 
Change the subject, and change the character and 
habits of the men, to any extent that you please, and 
you will find that the emotions constantly vary with 
the habits. David Garrick, the celebrated actor, is 
said to kave been as inordinate in his love of money 
as he was successful in the representation of human 
character and human passions on the stage; and 
Leonard Euler, the analyst, was equally celebrated 

u3 



222 GARR1CK AND EULER. 

for his power of mental calculation, especially after 
the loss of his sight had deprived him of the external 
helps. Now, it is said of each of these very great 
men, — for they were both very great in their way, 
though some admire the greatness of the one, some 
that of the other; some admire, and some despise 
both, — it is said of them that they displayed the lead- 
ing habit very strongly in the very article of death. 
It is reported of Garrick, that when a doubt arose as to 
whether he had actually departed this life, a purse of 
guineas was jingled at his ear, upon which he instantly 
showed signs of vitality, of which there had been none 
for some time before. In like manner it is said, that 
when the friends who stood round the death-bed of 
Euler were in doubt as to whether they had finally 
lost him or not, one whispered in his ear, " What is 
the cube root of ? " naming a pretty large num- 
ber ; and the expiring calculator almost instantly fal- 
tered out the answer. 

We mention these two instances merely for the 
purpose of showing how very ready the suggestion of 
habit is, even when we can scarcely imagine anything 
to call it up but a mere notice to the body, when that 
has almost ceased to be sentient. But, as such is the 
case in these extreme instances, how much more must 
it be the case when the body is in all the vigour of its 
sensations. In the case of a confirmed habit, it must 
then be too strong for any resistance of a merely in- 
tellectual or reasoning nature ; and the man of con- 
firmed habit must have his prospective emotions, and 
the actions consequent upon those emotions, following 



HABITS. 223 

the bent of the habit, against all mental resistance 
on his own part, and in defiance of ordinary human 
laws. 

It must not, however, be supposed, that this power 
of habit over the emotions and the actions is, in itself, 
an evil ; for, on the contrary, it is of the greatest good 
both to individuals and to society; and the only caution 
which it requires is the utmost care in the formation 
of the habit, which, as we have had occasion to remark 
again and again, takes place so very early in life that 
the fault, if fault there shall happen to be, falls rather 
upon those who have the early management of the 
individual than upon the individual himself. If bad 
habits are formed, and allowed to be confirmed, the 
consequences may be very serious, both to the indi- 
vidual and to society ; and there are difficulties in the 
case, because experience has shown, by many very 
striking instances, that excessive tending and absolute 
neglect lead to nearly the same results. In the former 
case, the party grows up with no character or mind of 
his own ; and in the latter, he takes up that character 
which is most broadly displayed, and therefore most 
easily found, in the society in which he happens to be 
placed. From the nature of the case, the over-tended 
youth is placed in the more perilous situation of the 
two ; and unless he is tended through life — kept in 
some sort of leading-strings by others — he has every 
chance of injuring himself, and doing no good to so- 
ciety. He is not left to depend on his own decision ; 
and therefore, when a desire or a fear is excited by 
any present cause, whatever that cause may be, he 



224 THE OVER-TENDED. 

wants that member of the comparison which the sug- 
gestion of a man of more independent mind would at 
once supply ; and thus he is a mere thing of impulses, 
and carries his babyhood with him through life, — 

" Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw." 

Society swarms with such characters; and they are 
neither confined to the humbler classes of society, nor 
most numerous there. If they do not fall into abso- 
lute vice — of which, however, there is very consider- 
able danger — they are of some use in society, if it is 
only in spreading the mole-hills which their fathers 
have pushed out of the earth, in pursuing the sub- 
ways of accumulation. 

The individuals who are left to form their own cha- 
racters, are, upon the whole, in more peril of having 
strong emotions misdirected, which may lead to ruin, 
while the characterless, who are led, tend more to fri- 
volity. This depends much on circumstances, how- 
ever, — namely, upon the temptations to which they 
maybe exposed; and perhaps we may state, as a truth 
to which there are few exceptions, that unless the 
mental neglect is accompanied by the necessity of 
physical self-dependence, the neglected party seldom 
turns out well. They who are well fed and clothed 
without any exertion on their own parts, and at the 
same time mentally neglected, are never good for 
much, either to themselves or to anybody else ; and 
this is one of the chief reasons why the common 
charity-schools are such nuisances — as the majority of 
those who have anything to do with children that 



THE NEGLECTED. 225 

have been fed and clothed — we cannot say educated — 
at them, find them to be. 

In large towns, and generally in places where there 
is much population and wealth, and in consequence 
many temptations to crimes against property, the 
totally neglected in early life are beset with dangers 
from which it is not easy to escape. But this is not 
the fault of themselves or of the neglecting, but of 
the situation in which that takes place. Whenever 
vice of any kind is systematically practised as a trade, 
those who are engaged in it are, like the members of 
other trades, always anxious to get apprentices, as they 
can have the services of these much cheaper, and also 
more faithfully performed, than they can probably 
have by the experienced and hardened in iniquity. 
Those parties cannot, in general, find apprentices with 
consent of parents, in places where they are known ; 
and unless under peculiar circumstances, and by the 
practice of a good deal of craft, they cannot succeed 
by advertisement. Hence they are under the necessity 
of lying in wait for and seducing into their service 
those children that are neglected by their parents ; 
and these become in time proficients in iniquity, and 
are sent out to seduce others. This is a very serious 
evil; but it is an evil for which, hitherto at least, 
nothing like an adequate remedy has been found. 

In remote country places, where the temptations 
are fewer, and crimes and criminals are more easily 
detected, those neglected children, who would be 
ruined in towns, often rise to greater eminence, in 
their way, than others who have more attention paid 



226 SELF-FORMED CHARACTERS. 

them. One reason of this is, that they see only the 
better side of society on the part of those who are 
older than themselves. People of all ranks, from the 
very highest to the very lowest, carry matters more cir- 
cumspectly before the world than they do, at times at 
least, in their domestic retirement. This does not neces- 
sarily involve in it the slightest hypocrisy or intention 
to deceive. It is a tribute which individuals pay to 
society, — a natural and necessary tribute, without 
which the association of man with man would be not 
only disagreeable, but absolutely intolerable. Children 
of necessity see much of the domestic habits of their 
parents ; and thus, in many instances, they have at 
least a chance of seeing society under a less carefully 
regulated aspect than if they saw the external phase of 
the world. It maybe said that paternal kindness and 
counsel can counteract this, and we admit that it 
ought, but that it actually does so is very much 
secundum quid. If temptation is not in the way, we 
are inclined to think that the moral feeling may be 
kept in greater vigour by those who are left to form 
their own characters, provided that there is at the 
same time the necessity of being occupied. This is a 
subject, however, which involves so many elements, 
and depends so much upon circumstances, that nothing 
very positive can be said upon it, neither are there, 
perhaps, two individuals who arrive at the same con- 
clusion, even though they study it with equal attention 
and equal freedom from any preconceived hypothesis. 
The point to be arrived at is, that the good which 
men desire with sufficient earnestness to make them 



PHYSICAL GOOD. 227 

act upon the desire should always coincide as nearly 
as possible with physical good and moral good ; and 
conversely, that which they fear, so as to abstain from, 
should coincide as nearly as possible with physical 
evil and moral evil. The knowledge of these stan- 
dards, by which the emotions ought to be regulated, 
is therefore the essential part of the matter. It is 
really in this knowledge that the fitting of Man for 
society consists ; for the mere technical knowledge of 
science, art, or business, is comparatively easy and 
straight-forward, as it does not necessarily involve any 
emotion by which its progress can be disturbed. The 
whole of it conduces, or ought to conduce, to our 
physical and intellectual good; and it has in itself 
no natural or necessary connexion, either with moral 
good or moral evil. 

Physical Good is a matter of knowledge rather than 
of feeling ; and though, from the connexion of indi- 
viduals with society, it assumes a sort of social char- 
acter, yet it is essentially individual. Society requires 
that its members should promote and in no wise 
hinder the physical good of each other ; but the best 
interests of society, as well as those of the individual, 
require that each man should pursue his own physical 
good as the grand business of life. 

Our physical good is merely a general name for all 
our enjoyments, both bodily and mental, during the 
whole course of our lives. We cannot say that even 
the most wretched of the human race are destitute of 
physical good, for it is good to be alive ; and, if we are 
in a sane state, we would, even when we complain in 



228 DESIRE OF LIFE. 

words that we are weary of life, resist or fly from 
death, if that were to make its appearance. There is 
a little fable of a cottager's wife, which is not unap- 
plicable here. The good woman had the best of 
husbands ; and he was in bed very sick of a fever, 
and at the point of death. When she fancied that 
all hope of his recovering was gone, she sat down, 
covered her downcast face with her hands, and wept 
bitterly, and prayed earnestly that death would take 
her, and spare her beloved husband. While she was 
in the deepest flood of her affliction, and the highest 
fervour of her prayers, a domestic bird as black as jet 
stalked into the cottage, and pecked her pretty smartly 
on the bare arm. She instantly looked up, saw the 
bird, and, never doubting that he was the last enemy, 
she started to her feet, seized the broom as a weapon 
of defence, and shouted, " Get away from me ! I am 
in perfect health ; but look on the bed there — there 
is he whom you want, and who is nearly ready for 
you : take him and begone." This is very likely; and 
we have known instances of apparently intending 
suicides, being dashed into the water as they stood on 
the bank, and instantly making successful efforts to 
save themselves by swimming. 

The desire of life is, indeed, one of the strongest 
and most necessary of all our desires; and so far from 
being diminished by the desire of immortality, and 
the full assurance of hope that we shall be eternally 
happy, the desire of the present life is rather increased 
by these ; and this is one of the cases in which the 
desire is, in considerable part, the means of its own 



LONG LIFE. 229 

fulfilment. An increase of the present life is no 
abridgement of eternity, for that will be just as long 
if we suppose it to be begun millions of years hence, 
as if it had been begun when Man was at first created. 
We ought also to bear in mind, that the present life is 
our only opportunity for acquiring that experience in 
knowledge and in feeling which is to be our bliss or 
our torment for ever ; and that therefore it will be the 
measure of that happiness or misery. Long life, 
therefore, is the fundamental element of physical good, 
according to which all the rest will be regulated. 

But what is long life, and what the standard of its 
duration, to a being like Man, consisting of a mortal 
body and an immortal mind ? In so far as the mere 
body is concerned, we can measure its life by the 
rotation of the earth on its axis, by the revolution of 
the same in its orbit, or by any other material revolu- 
tion which we believe to be uniform. This material 
standard will not, however, apply to the mind ; for, to 
the mind, all time is of equal length, and it costs us 
no more effort to reflect backward to the creation of 
the world, or forward to its final scene, than it does 
to reflect upon the last or the next moment. There 
is, therefore, one measure of life for the body — a 
measure which is common to all natural things of 
fleeting duration; and there is another measure of 
it for the mind ; and, as the mind is the Man, it is 
according to the mental measure that we must esti- 
mate life as a physical good. 

What, then, is the mental measure of human life ? 
It must be in something that we know of the mind • 

III. x 



230 MEASURE OF LIFE. 

and all that we do know, or can know of it is, that it 
can perceive, and think, and feel ; and that the single 
efforts of those mental exercises occupy no measurable 
portions of time. Mental activity is therefore the pro- 
per measure of life ; and not the mere days by the sun 
that the body is upon the earth. A long memory is 
the reality of a long life, without any necessary refer- 
ence to the years which the body lives. But, although 
the memory may in some cases be short though the 
years are long, yet, with equal mental activity, the 
years do become a measure even of the mental life ; 
so that, independently of the present life, the weal or 
the woe of eternity will vary with the number of 
years. Not only this, but, as experience is our only 
guide, the longer we live the better are we able to 
understand what to be done, either for our own good 
or for that of society, and the more clearly can we 
perceive the intimate relation which subsists between 
these. It is true that, after a certain portion of life 
has elapsed, the body becomes less capable of exertion 
than in the earlier period ; but even this is, in great 
part, owing to ourselves, for very old men generally 
retain their bodily activity to the very extremity of 
life ; and when the bodily activity is thus kept up — for 
in most cases it is a keeping up dependent upon the 
conduct of the parties, — the mental energies are kept 
up along with it. This is what we might expect, for, 
as the mind in itself can know no decay, its percep- 
tions and its emotions cannot be weakened with age. 

This points out to us the general means by which 
long life, in years, in enjoyment, and in usefulness, 



MEANS OF LONG LIFE. 231 

may be best attained ; and it is very pleasing to find 
that these are also the means by which our duties to 
society can be best performed. Equal action of the 
whole Man, in his compound nature, is the secret of 
long life, and also of usefulness and of enjoyment. If 
we confine ourselves to mere mental abstraction, our 
bodies not only become useless, but our abstractions 
become dreamy and theoretical, and of no real use 
either to ourselves or to others. Man is so constituted 
that the mind never can work well unless the body, 
in some way or other, works along with it. Hence, a 
mere scholar or philosopher, who mews himself up 
in his study, his laboratory, his museum, or whatever 
else it may be, is much more nearly allied to the fool 
and the sot than he would be willing to believe. He 
wants the observation of the senses to give new 
impulses to his mind ; and his own little track gets 
worn to so deep a rut, that out of it he cannot get, and 
in it he can see nothing but the dingy results of his 
own delving. 

On the other hand, if the body only is occupied, the 
mind, — the emotion of which cannot rest even though 
the intellectual faculties, as we may call them, have 
scarcely awakened into exercise, — never fails to lead 
the body astray by some means or other. Sensual 
indulgence and perfect indolence are the alternations 
here, or if there is any other tendency, it is to an 
alternation of the two. The accounts which we have 
of the monastic orders, at the time when the country 
abounded with them, afford a good illustration of 
what has now been said of those who are bodily 



232 MONACHISM. 

inactive, whether their minds be or be not in the 
same indolent state. There were many militant cha- 
racters among them, who were, of course, monastic 
in nothing but the name, and therefore they must be 
left out ; but it may be said that, with the single 
exception of these, the indolent monks were all 
sensualists, and the studious monks dotards and 
dreamers, often very acute men, but always supersti- 
tious and credulous. 

This, again, shows us, " it is not good for Man to 
be alone," and that he cannot have that equal and 
wholesome enjoyment of either his body or his mind, 
which ensures long life in every sense of the term, 
unless he has it in the society of his fellow-men ; and 
thus, the duties which Man owes to society, and the 
exertions which he ought to make for the welfare of 
that society, are the very means by which he ensures 
to himself the foundation of the greatest physical 
good. 

We need not, at any great length, enumerate the 
details of physical good; for they comprise every 
thing that tends to ensure this long life, and render 
the whole term of it happy. A regular supply of all 
the necessaries of life, and of its comforts and ele- 
gancies, according to the station of the party, is com- 
prehended in this ; and so is a reasonable hope of the 
continuance of them; but they lose much of their 
sweetness in the enjoyment, if they are not procured 
by some sort of exertion on our part, in the way either 
of actual labour, or of direction or superintendence of 
some kind or other. In the limited sense of the 



GENERAL IDEA OF PHYSICAL GOOD. 233 

word, physical good is one's real interest in the world, 
in every sense in which the world can he interesting ; 
and thus it ought to be one of the ends in view in all 
that a man learns and in all that he does. Not only 
this ; for the mental enjoyment of it, which is the 
only true enjoyment, constitutes all of our eternal 
happiness of which we can have any conception while 
we are in the body. What change there may be 
when the mind is separated, and has no longer the 
body to inform it by sensation, obey it in action, and 
be the object of its constant solicitude, we cannot 
tell; for, whatever conjectures we may have upon the 
subject are foundationless, and by whatever similitudes 
we may attempt to set it forth, they are all physical, 
borrowed from the objects of sense, and therefore 
inapplicable and unmeaning. 

The pursuit of our physical good is a reasoning 
pursuit, not an instinctive one, or one of impulse ; 
because the good itself admits of definition, and this 
becomes a standard, to which whatever we are com- 
pelled to do by the appetites of the body, or the 
desires of the mind, may be brought, for the purpose 
of determining whether it is or is not what we ought 
to do. The object of every desire seems good to us, 
otherwise no desire of it would arise ; and if we had 
not some test by which to try that object, we should try 
to do all that we desire, even though it should involve 
our immediate ruin. Physical good is not emotional, 
but found out by experience; and therefore our under- 
standing of it can never be perfect, although we may 
make approximations, according to the extent and 

x3 



234 MORAL GOOD AND EVIL. 

the accuracy of our knowledge. As knowledge is thus 
the foundation of our acquaintance with physical good, 
we cannot, in that, properly, be said to have any 
natural feeling of that implanted in our minds, neither 
have we any single nameable emotion which prompts 
us to the pursuit of this physical good ; for, on the 
contrary, it is the means, at least one of the means, 
by which we regulate, or ought to regulate, our other 
emotions ; and if we were alone in the world, and had 
no relation to society, this physical good would be the 
only good that we should have any occasion to pursue. 

Moral Good is that by which we ought to regulate 
the pursuit of our physical good, so as to do justice 
to the rest of society at the same time that we do the 
best for ourselves; and the opposite of this moral good 
is, of course, Moral Evil. Moral good is not, like 
physical good, the result of knowledge ; for knowledge 
still continues to be what was said of it at the first, — 
the knowledge of " good and evil." This is the reason 
why those who have treated of the moral and social 
condition and relations of Man have propounded so 
many and so opposite theories of the foundation of 
moral and social obligation ; and also why the laws 
which have been, and continue to be, from time to 
time enacted for the moral and social government of 
mankind, are so frequently inadequate to their in- 
tended purposes. 

At first sight, at least as matter of reason or argu- 
ment, the physical good of every individual appears to 
be in direct opposition to the physical good of every 
other individual with whom he may happen to come 



DIFFERENCES OF POSSESSION. 235 

into contact in any of the intercourses of life. The 
man who has an estate appears, at first sight, to have 
appropriated a portion of the common bounty which 
God has given equally to all men, and for the enjoy- 
ment of which he has equally fitted all men, — to the 
manifest injury of all men who have not the estate. 
It is the same with every possession which one man 
can have and another man be without ; and yet this 
very inequality of possession is the foundation and 
bond of society — the chief means whereby tribes and 
nations are gradually raised from the privation and 
misery of savageism, to all the comforts and elegances 
of the highest stage of civilization and refinement. In 
the very common relations of buyer and seller, there 
seems, at first sight, to be a perfect opposition of 
physical good, or, which is the same, of interest. It is, 
you will admit, the interest of the buyer to get the 
object of his purchase at the lowest price to which he 
can possibly reduce it by cheapening and higgling ; 
and it is the interest of the seller to obtain the very 
highest price that he can. Persons of illiterate and 
vulgar minds act upon these views of the case ; and it 
is no uncommon thing to see them higgle as long 
about a single penny in the price of some trifling com- 
modity as each of them might earn sixpence in the 
practice of some other occupation; and whatever may 
be the rank in life of the parties, there is not a more 
certain evidence of vulgarity, meanness, and igno- 
rance, than this same higgling. A man who, whether 
as buyer or seller, does not know the worth of his 



236 ROBBER AND THIEF. 

commodity, and does not abide by the estimate of that 
worth, is a pest and nuisance. 

But this is not the whole length, or nearly the whole 
length, to which the exclusive pursuit of his own phy- 
sical good would carry each individual of the human 
race. That would extend to the taking of the price 
without giving the commodity, and the taking of the 
commodity without giving the price, by any means, 
forcible or fraudulent, by which the object could be 
accomplished. There might, indeed, be this difference : 
that the man of mere desire and impulse would take 
the forcible means, — snatch that which he desired 
whenever he saw it ; while the crafty calculator of his 
own physical good would watch his opportunity, and 
steal it. The first would, in order to accomplish his 
object, murder, with bold and daring hand, those who 
stand in the way of it; and the other would administer 
poison, or lie in wait, or lure another, to assassinate. 

It is useful to glance at the progress of society, and 
observe how these propensities — without some degree 
of which no society has ever existed — change from 
class to class, and from the one propensity to the 
other, in the different stages. In very rude states, the 
strong are, almost to a man, robbers and murderers, 
and the weak are thieves. When men in a much more 
advanced state take up their abode in the neighbour- 
hood of these rude beings, they do not bring the 
savages to civilization. The native vices remain ; and 
they are aggravated by acquired ones, such as the love 
of intoxicating liquors, under the influence of which 



THE HEATHEN GODS. 23/ 

all the savage passions rage more fiercely than ever ; 
and the consequence is, that the savage hordes waste 
away, and leave the land to the more civilized. 

The first founders of kingdoms were the most power- 
ful ruffians, and the early sceptre was the bludgeon or 
the spear. The heroes or demigods of almost every 
heathen nation appear to have been the more success- 
ful and notorious robbers and murderers; and it is 
probable that, after they had been sufficiently darkened 
by the mist of time, these were the materials out of 
which the poets fashioned the gods. In times com- 
paratively recent, the barons were not only profes- 
sional robbers, but the victorious and noble deeds 
celebrated by the minstrels in their halls, were perpe- 
trations of lawless and atrocious outrage, just as if the 
glory of mankind had consisted in nothing save the 
destruction of each other by the most cruel means. 
There are yet displays of this false theory of glory in 
all wars, whether civil or international, and symptoms 
of its existence in many instances where absolute 
hostilities do not break out. To come still later : men 
of honour were highway robbers, or, at all events, 
highway robbers looked upon themselves, and some- 
times considered themselves, as honourable men, — as 
the proper descendants, through various generations 
and phases, of the gods of Olympus, or of any other 
gods of human invention. When the baron ceased to 
be a petty tyrant, the highwayman ceased to be a 
gemleman ; and we have now no highway robbers in 
England, save footpads of very low order, who are 
daring and lost enough to be villains, and have not 



238 LONDON ABOMINATIONS. 

talent enough for successful thieves. The instances 
of these are but rare ; and theft, in its various modes, 
but in what mode soever it may assume, always per- 
petrated by the mean in spirit, and the ignorant in all 
knowledge worthy of man, is the general type in this 
age of multiplied enjoyment and extreme luxury. 

Such is a very faint sketch of one of the forms of 
moral evil, through a considerable range both of time 
and of the progress of society ; and the variety of cha- 
racters is immense, from Jupiter to Peter the Jew, 
who kidnaps and tutors young pickpockets, and receives 
stolen goods, at a small fraction of the value, in one 
of the filthiest of holes in that most abominable of all 
cesspools for the accumulation of the blackest dregs 
of human society, Field-lane, Holborn-hill, London. 
How a city so wise allows of such maculation as this, 
would be a perplexing point upon any hypothesis 
which professed to be based on reason ; but we sup- 
pose that the plea is, that " the law allows it, and the 
court awards it ;" for Jaws and courts are sometimes 
so contrived as to prosecute the detected offender, and 
yet conserve the offence, as a means, perchance, of 
future renown and employment ; but of this we have 
no occasion particularly to speak, and it is not a sub- 
ject upon which one would very willingly speak with- 
out occasion. 

Moral good does not directly contribute to the gra- 
tification of any one of our desires, either of those im- 
pulsive desires which rise immediately when their 
objects present themselves in sensation or in thought, 
or of those desires, regulated by reason, which have 



IDEA OF MORAL GOOD. 239 

always in view our physical good, both in this w r orld, 
and in the next — if we are duly impressed with the 
latter. It has reference to actions only, and not to 
the actions themselves, but to certain qualities of 
them, and not to these unless the actions are per- 
formed by human beings. Moral good cannot there- 
fore be, in itself, and abstractedly from all considera- 
tion of human actions, the object of any desire, 
though we may desire that we ourselves, or that 
others, should act virtuously, — that is, in accordance 
with moral good. This is the reason why moral good 
is called virtue, — a word which denotes an energy and 
not a substance. It is also the reason why there have 
been so many and so opposite hypotheses respecting 
the nature and origin of virtue. A mere list of the 
chief of these hypotheses may be useful to those who 
are but little conversant with the philosophy of Man, 
inasmuch as one or another of them is, more or less, 
to be found in what may be considered the very best 
works upon this department of philosophy. 

The first hypothesis which we shall mention is that 
which makes the commands of rulers and the enact- 
ments of legislators the original and only foundation 
of virtue ; which says that, in themselves, all human 
actions are indifferent, in the same manner as the 
actions of irrational and inanimate nature ; and that 
they become virtuous only when they are agreeable to 
the command of the law, and vicious only when they 
are in opposition to the same. This is the doctrine 
which is maintained, and maintained with much acute- 
ness, by Hobbes, the Malmesbury philosopher ; and it 



240 DIVINE-RIGHT THEORY 

is the foundation of the plea, we cannot call it the 
argument, for the ce divine right of kings." That this 
hypothesis is philosophically absurd, and practically 
mischievous, is almost self-evident ; for it presupposes 
that certain individuals of the human race have per- 
ceptions of virtue, merely from the accidental circum- 
stances of their holding, or being born to, certain 
offices ; but that the rest of menkind have no such 
perceptions. Not only this, but that the heir-apparent 
has not this perception of virtue until he is seated on 
the throne ; and when a reigning monarch is de- 
throned, he loses this perception. Napoleon, for in- 
stance, was a perfect judge of virtue and vice while 
he remained on the throne of France ; but when he 
went to St. Helena, he had no discernment of right 
and wrong, farther than Sir Hudson Lowe, his gaoler, 
was pleased to school him. So also, although a 
monarch cannot make this faculty descend to any of 
his children, he can confer it upon anybody, however 
worthless or immoral, by the simple act of granting a 
peerage. In like manner, a member of the Commons' 
has no capacity of distinguishing right from wrong, 
any farther than the existing law tells him, so long as 
he is in his counting-house in the city, or at his seat 
in the country ; but the instant that he enters " the 
House," the mysterious inspiration comes upon him, 
and he is competent to take his part in the abrogation 
or the enactment of any law; and whatever he says — if 
he happens to be in the majority — is right. The argu- 
ment which the Freethinkers propounded to Martinus 
Scriblerus, that " so many unthinking members com- 



OF GOOD AND EVIL. 241 

pose one thinking system/' went a good way; but this 
legislative and executive origin of virtue goes a great 
deal further. 

It is, of course, only in their official capacity that 
all who command or legislate are gifted with this per- 
ception of virtue and vice, or moral good and evil; for, 
in their private relations, they have not an idea of the 
kind; and although strange, it is yet strictly true, that 
off the throne our most gracious sovereign has not the 
slightest knowledge of right and wrong ; and that the 
senator, when he is out of the house, is not more a 
moral agent than a donkey ! 

Such is the direction which this hypothesis takes 
when we follow it out only a very little way ; and we 
doubt not that the reader will think it absurd enough. 
It is quite evident, however, that this hypothesis in- 
volves the doctrine of private and social licentiousness 
to the utmost extent possible ; and that while, in ex- 
pression, it resolves all virtue into the command and 
the law, it sets the natural feelings of every man 
against both. We have said that it is the foundation 
of the doctrine of the divine right ; and we know what 
were the consequences of that doctrine while the dy- 
nasty of the Stuarts was on the throne of England. 
It is the old "Tory" doctrine; and was, not very 
long ago, faithfully and forcibly epitomized by a very 
learned, but very militant prelate of the English 
Church, when he stated, in the House of Peers, that 
" the people have nothing to do with the laws but to 
obey them." Whether the same doctrine is still main- 
tained by any party, we have no direct means of ascer- 

III, Y 



242 FEELING OF MORAL GOOD. 

taining, even though the inquiry were worth our while; 
for the political fancies of the present day seem to have 
but little philosophical basis one way or another. 

The remaining hypotheses, of which there are many, 
have this much in common, that they consider the 
foundation of virtue as a matter which is in some way 
the result of observation, of reasoning, or of both. 
Now, we admit that we require the aid of observation 
and reasoning for the guidance of our moral feeling, 
just as we do for that of all our other emotions ; but 
still, this is the training of the emotion, not the origin 
of it. A farmer may obtain a better crop by proceed- 
ing upon the experience which he has acquired, than 
a man ignorant of farming can obtain from the same 
field ; but no experience of the farmer can obtain a 
crop without seed. It is the same with every emo- 
tion, — experience can turn it to the proper account ; 
but unless the emotion previously exists, experience 
has nothing to work upon, and consequently it can do 
nothing. 

We repeat, that knowledge and experience are ne- 
cessary for the regulation of our feeling of moral good 
and evil, so necessary that, without the constant exer- 
cise of them, the emotion would be a bane to us, and 
not a blessing, in the pursuit of our temporal good ; 
but still, the emotion which our experience guides, is 
as essential as the experience that guides it. Indeed, 
were it not for this feeling of moral good and evil, of 
virtue and vice, of right and wrong, or of any other 
names by which the qualities which excite it to ap- 
proval or to disapproval may be called, our experience 



HYPOCRISY THEORY. 243 

and reason would be solely directed to the pursuit of 
our own physical good, without the slightest regard 
to the injury which we might thereby do to others ; 
and thus, the foundation of society would be destroyed, 
and man would be set against man in incessant and 
interminable warfare. It is by losing sight of the dis- 
tinction between the guidance of the emotion and the 
origin of it, that all the false hypotheses have been 
devised ; and we may remark that the whole of them 
belong to the same school of error, which attributes 
all the forms of matter to matter itself; and supposes 
that " developement " — a word which they do not 
appear to understand — in time changes simple or 
primordial matter into a rock and a limpet upon that 
rock, and yet again changes the rock into a field of 
corn and the limpet into a man. 

The second hypothesis which we shall notice is that 
which resolves all virtue into hypocrisy. We love the 
praise of society, and we love to profit by society; and 
for the sake of this praise and this profit, we disguise 
our real propensities, and make some sacrifices of 
those indulgences which would be our constant prac- 
tice if the eye of society were not upon us. Of all the 
systems which have been propounded, this is the one 
which places human nature in the most odious light, — 
in a light so odious, indeed, that it has much more of 
the character of a satire upon human duplicity and 
depravity than of a sober theory of human nature. 
The notes to Dr. Mandeville's "Fable of the Bees" 
contain the developement of this hypothesis, and the 
argument, if argument it can be called, for its general 



244 



MANDEVILLE. 



truth. There is no reason to suppose that, in the 
framing of this hypothesis, Mandeville had the slightest 
intention of teaching hypocrisy and licentiousness; and 
therefore it is natural to conclude that he narrowed 
his view to all that was bad in human nature, and 
framed his hypothesis accordingly. This is rendered 
the more probable by the fact, that they who live in 
worthless and abandoned society come to nearly the 
same practical conclusions as the hypothetical ones of 
Mandeville ; but if he had gone to the society of the 
abandoned for his type, and taken it fairly from them, 
his conclusion would have been very different. So far 
are even the most abandoned associations from prac- 
tising a hypocritical show of virtue towards each other, 
that they, among themselves, exult in their vices, and 
applaud the most that member of the gang who is 
most daringly and desperately wicked; and if they 
practise dissimulation, by putting on the appearance 
of virtue, when they come publicly in contact with 
the more virtuous part of society, that is in itself a 
virtual admission that even they have not entirely lost 
the feeling of virtue or moral good, how much soever 
they may have departed from the practice of it. The 
"honour among thieves/' of which we often hear, and 
which is too often mentioned for being a sarcasm or a 
mere saying, is another proof that there is some re- 
mains of virtue even in those whose daily profession 
and practice is vice ; and we have heard that, when 
one of these outcasts from virtuous society practises 
his vocation upon another of the gang, he is expelled 
and shunned as much as an ordinary villain is by 



a thieves' attorney. 245 

decent society. We have heard a story told — relating, 
of course, to times long before the memory of the 
present generation — that there once was, somewhere 
in the eastern part of the city of London, a profes- 
sional man who acted in the capacity of a " thieves 5 
attorney," — that is, he bullied the magistrates, sub- 
orned witnesses, and did all that could be done to 
swear the administrators of justice into the belief that 
a rogue in fact might be a very good man in law. By 
these means it is said that he acquired so much money 
that he came at length to civic honours, though, of 
course, of but inferior degree,— which shows, by the 
way, that a man may rise to honours by the zealous 
discharge of most dishonourable services; but with 
that we have no immediate concern, for were it a point 
which we were called upon to establish, we should find 
other means than these. But to the point : — A cate- 
chumen among the stealers from dwelling-houses had 
watched his opportunity, and stolen a valuable bracket 
clock from the abode of the attorney. This he carried 
to the rendezvous of his gang, in Rosemary-lane, or 
somewhere else, and exhibited it in triumph as a rich 
reward of the morning's prowling. Many of the vete- 
rans had seen the clock, and knew the owner : the 
esprit du corps came upon them, and they first be- 
laboured the erring thief, and then made him carry 
the clock back to the owner, and apologize for the 
mistake. Thus, even from the most abandoned part 
of society, we can obtain a refutation of the very per- 
nicious hypothesis of Mandeville. 

But there is no need of going even thus far for a 

y3 



246 FALLACY OF MANDEVILLE. 

refutation, for the hypothesis refutes itself in the very 
terms in which it is stated. If we hope to recommend 
ourselves to the good graces of mankind, surely the 
best way of doing it is to exhibit to them that which 
they themselves like. Therefore, if all mankind were 
essentially, in the habit and very constitution of their 
nature, vicious, they would not be pleased with even 
the semblance of virtue. On the other hand, if there 
were the slightest truth in the hypothesis, mankind 
would seek carefully to conceal from each other every 
action which could in any way be, according to our 
common notions, construed into a virtue; and not 
only display their real sins in the broadest light, but 
set up false pretences to more glaring ones than any 
which they practised, or were capable of practising. 
So much for what may be regarded as the hypothesis 
of universal licentiousness and deceit. 

The third hypothesis which we shall enumerate is 
that of what may be called " the extrinsic origin of 
virtue." According to the abettors of this, there is 
u an eternal truth," a " rule of right," a primordial 
" fitness of things;" and human actions are virtuous 
when they agree with this, and vicious when they do 
not. Now, our perception of this fitness of things 
must either be virtue under another name, or else it 
has no application to Man, and indeed no meaning. 
That there is a "fitness" in all things, animate and 
inanimate, we do not deny; but this fitness has nothing 
to do with the moral qualities of human actions. A 
parrot is fitted for living in trees, and an ox for grazing 
the herbage of the fields ; and it is a violation of this 



FITNESS OF THINGS. 24/ 

fitness to confine the parrot in a cage, or to shut up 
the ox in a stall and fatten it for the butcher ; but 
surely no man in his senses would maintain that there 
is a moral guilt in any one of these. All human art 
is, in fact, a departure from the natural fitness of 
things ; and yet every one feels that there is not vice, 
but virtue, in the diligent and judicious practice of the 
useful arts. The "fitness of things" can therefore 
mean nothing but the propriety of human actions; 
and if the art be new to us, we cannot tell, by any pro* 
cess of reasoning, whether it be proper or improper, 
until we have seen how the event turns out ; but this 
is too late, because, if mischief is done, it cannot, of 
course, be prevented. Now, if we had no feeling of 
the moral good or evil of an act, until that act were 
performed and we could judge of it from the conse- 
quences, it is evident that our morality would be of 
no use to us. It is upon the emotion, that the moral 
restraint or the moral inducement must bear; and 
thus, that which is required is something more imme- 
diate in its operation than a process of reasoning. 
Our own physical good is generally, if not always, 
either directly or indirectly, the foremost subject in all 
our thoughts and processes of reasoning; and it is also 
the origin of by far the greater number of our desires, 
at least of all of them that arise out of subjects of 
judgment and experience ; and, that we may not in- 
jure others in the pursuit of this good, we require to 
have something besides our own interest to regulate 
our desires. A feeling is the only inward monitor of 
this kind that we can have, and this feeling is anterior 



248 UTILITARIANISM. 

to all thought and knowledge of our own interest, or 
of anything else, and it applies to every human action, 
and to nothing else; and instead of this feeling having 
any relation to the fitness of things, it does not apply 
to things at all, but is strictly confined to persons. 

The fourth hypothesis is, that utility is the measure 
of virtue, — is, in fact, virtue itself. This is the hypo- 
thesis upon which Hume builds his system of morals, 
and builds it with great acuteness and subtlety. It is 
also an hypothesis which is most convenient for shallow 
reasoners, and therefore it is much more widely dif- 
fused and prevalent than any of the others. So pre- 
valent is it, that almost all those who, at the present 
time, set up pretensions to the title of social and 
political philosophers, are Utilitarians, — men who 
look upon human virtue, and human nature itself, as 
mere chattels, estimable at what they actually bring 
in the general market of the world, and no more. In 
some respects, this is a fallacy of the same kind as 
that which considers virtue as in accordance with 
truth, or the fitness of things. Like that, it assumes a 
standard extrinsic of Man himself, with which standard 
he, by a common process of reasoning, compares that 
which he wishes to do ; and, if the result of the com- 
parison be that the act is in accordance with the 
standard, the action is performed, as virtuous ; but if 
it disagrees with the standard, the action is abstained 
from, or, if performed, it is vicious. ee Truth," and 
i( the fitness of things," are expressions of so very 
vague and general a nature, that, unless we bring 
them to particular instances, we can understand little 



UTILITY. 249 

or nothing about them. They are qualities, and not 
subjects; and therefore there must be subjects of which 
they are qualities before we can form any judgment 
concerning them. Nor is this all ; for in every case 
where we arrive at a conclusion or judgment by means 
of a comparison, we must have a known standard of 
judgment ; and therefore, in order that we may judge 
of moral truth or fitness, we require that very feeling 
of virtue, the place of which these, or either of these, 
are supposed to occupy. Such is the essence of the 
hypothesis of those who, as Pope expresses it, — 

" Take the high priori road, 
And reason downward till they doubt of God." 

The Utilitarian hypothesis agrees with this in having 
a standard, but it takes " the posteriori road," and 
makes the virtue of all actions to depend upon their 
consequences ; for we must, of course, wait the event, 
before we can ascertain whether an action is to be use- 
ful or not. Utility is a well-sounding name, however, 
and it falls in very readily with the views of vulgar 
and illiterate minds, who can imagine no enjoyment 
of human life, but such as can be purchased with 
money. If this were the case, all that we admire the 
most in human history would be transferred to the 
category of vice; for though we feel joy in the con- 
templation of those who succeed in a good cause, we 
feel a higher emotion for the virtue of those who re- 
sist oppression to the death. 

If what we call moral good, or virtue, were nothing 
but utility under another name, then they could not 



250 UTILITY IS NOT VIRTUE. 

but be identified in every possible case. The atmo- 
spheric air is of more real utility to the human race 
than all the acts of beneficence that ever were per- 
formed, or than all the saints and martyrs that ever 
lived ; and therefore, according to this hypothesis, the 
atmospheric air holds the foremost place in virtue. 
So also, a favourable season is of more use, and an 
unfavourable season of more injury, than any one man 
in the country, let him be habitually as good or as bad 
as he may; and yet, even the most moon-struck of the 
almanac-makers never thought of calculating the vir- 
tues and vices of the weather. It is true that attempts 
have been made to exorcise a storm by bell, book, and 
candle, and that some bishops have fulminated the 
anathemas of the church against destructive flocks of 
migratory pigeons ; but these are the means by which 
craft perpetuates superstition, and no man, in the fair 
and free exercise of his understanding, ever imagined 
the possibility of moral good or evil in anything but 
human actions; and yet no one can deny that the 
substances and the events of the physical world are 
full of utility, — so full that, though mankind have 
been extending the knowledge of that utility for 
thousands of years, the discovery is yet very far from 
being completed. 

But virtue, as compared with utility, is yet farther 
narrowed ; for we do not measure the virtue and the 
utility of human actions by the same standard. So 
far from this, that there are many virtuous, and highly 
virtuous, actions, which are of little or no real use; and 
there are many of the most useful actions of mankind 



FALLACY OF HUME. 251 

which are not only not regarded as virtuous, but which 
were actually vicious in the original intentions that led 
to their performance. The arts of reading, writing, 
printing, and the various collateral ones which put us 
in possession of the knowledge of former ages, and of 
the outline of what all nations are doing at the present 
time, have been brought to their present perfection by 
the acts of many individuals ; and yet we never think 
of calling them virtues. It is because our agricul- 
turists and our manufacturers are so attentive to their 
respective employments that we are so well appointed 
in all the necessaries and luxuries of life ; but it is no 
virtue in a farmer to attend to his crops and his stock, 
and it is no virtue in any man to bring to market the 
best commodity that he possibly can; for the object 
in each and all of these cases is to get the honour and 
the reward which are attendant upon success. 

Indeed, when we once dissect away the entangle- 
ment of the sophistry with which its grand abettor 
encircled his doctrine, we come to a cod elusion the 
very opposite of that which he draws, — namely, that 
if a perception of utility is the motive of any ac- 
tion, in so far there is no virtuein it at all. In that 
case, it would be superfluous, because the perception 
of the utility is quite enough without it ; and it is a 
law of the nature of man, as well as of all else in crea- 
tion, that where one motive or one principle suffices 
for any purpose, two are never given, Our calcula- 
tions of utility have all a direct or an indirect reference 
to our own physical good ; and our feeling of moral 
virtue is not given us for the furtherance of that, but 



ZOZ THE MISTAKE. 

for our guidance in society, so that we may pursue our 
own good without injury to others. 

So far, therefore, is the calculation of utility from 
being virtue, or the foundation of virtue, that the 
direct tendency of the system of the Utilitarians is to 
destroy all moral feeling, and reduce the whole in- 
tercourse of the human race to the cold calculation of 
bargain and rule. It may at first sight appear a little 
strange that so acute a reasoner as Hume should have 
been betrayed into so gross a fallacy as that which is 
the foundation of the Utilitarian hypothesis of morals. 
But Hume was fond of paradoxes ; and he was much 
less an adept in analysis than in the synthetical 
rearing up of a system. His " virtue," means moral 
good; and his "utility," means physical good; and 
these, though not always opposed, are sometimes 
opposed, and never in any one instance the same. 
Moral good, or its opposite, is an immediate feeling, 
arising from the simple perception, or thought of its 
subject, without any train of reasoning between the 
perception and the emotion ; and though we may 
reason it down, stifle it by passion, or overcome it by 
habit, it comes free and unbidden as the light of the 
sun. It is impossible to see, to hear, or to read of 
human misery or suffering, without feeling an emotion 
towards the relief of that suffering ; and it is just as 
impossible for us to hear or to read of the perpetra- 
tion of cruelty against man, without an emotion to- 
ward relief or rescue, and an emotion of hatred toward 
the oppressor. We never pause to reason about utility 
in these cases ; nor does the fact of there being no 



MORAL FEELING. 253 

possible utility in the case, of itself abate our emotion. 
The tale may come from the earliest volume of human 
history, it may relate to the most contingent future, 
it may be a mere fiction, or it may be a thought of 
our own that comes across us, in which we ourselves 
are in no way parties. But, come in what manner 
soever it will, so that it comes with the proper force 
of expression, the emotion arises; and we exult in 
virtue and detest vice, where there can be no possible 
allusion to utility. There have been many instances of 
those, who were only a few hours before or after en- 
gaged in the perpetration of crimes, shedding tears at 
the recital of some well- told tale of injustice and 
oppression toward helpless innocence. So strong, 
indeed, and so indestructible is this feeling of moral 
virtue, that, in extreme cases, the most depraved of 
mankind will act in obedience to it, without knowing 
that they are so acting. The abandoned of mankind 
can still retain a degree of admiration for virtue in 
others ; and the homage which they thus pay to it is 
not paid to " the unknown god." 

The fact is, that the moral feeling is an original, 
general, and inherent capacity in human nature ; and 
though it may be stifled by passion, by conduct, by 
improper society, and by many other means, it can 
never be destroyed. And, in those hours when there 
is no perpetration or thought of crime, and no com- 
panion to take part in present debauchery or the 
planning of future mischief, it will arise in its strength, 
and make the most stout-hearted in guilt quake and 
tremble, even more severely than if all his iniquities 

HI, Z 



254 INFLUENCE OF 

were detected, and the ministers of justice were in- 
closing him round so that he had no means of escaping 
the vengeance of the law. Fear is the utmost which 
the present can threaten, as to take place in the future ; 
and as the cause of fear is always an internal one, the 
mind may be so manned against it, as to dare it to the 
extremity of danger. In merely physical courage, 
the malefactor may march as firmly to trial as the 
soldier marches into battle ; or he may mount the 
scaffold with the same physical boldness as the soldier 
mounts the breach in storming a fortified place ; but 
no guilty man can play the hero in the face of his own 
moral feeling. If that is awakened, his physical daring 
is gone, and he is in the dust — 

" Exhausted, spiritless, afflicted, fallen." 

Hence there are many who, when they are brought 
forth to suffer for offences against the law, are under 
far greater pain than Man can inflict ; and quite insen- 
sible to the deadly preparations, and to the idle crowd, 
whom the love of strong emotion, or some worse motive, 
collect to witness the revolting scene. If the guilty 
could destroy this moral emotion, they might go on 
with impunity ; for the bitterness of death — of mere 
physical death, is soon over ; but this moral feeling is 
eternal as the mind itself; it cannot be stifled in the 
disembodied mind, but will form the barb and venom 
of that dart which will rankle for ever and for ever. 

It may be proper to notice here, as one of the most 
beautiful instances of design and execution, in the 
adaptation of Man to society, for the mutual and 



THE MORAL FEELING. 255 

reciprocal good of himself and others, how the physical 
good of the individual and the moral good of society 
promote each other, and, though they aim apparently 
in different directions, yet conduce to the same result. 
Though the feeling of virtue does not pause to calcu- 
late upon utility, or upon any result whatsoever, yet 
it so happens that a virtuous course of life is the one 
which conduces the most to the physical good of 
the individual, and ensures him the most abundant 
measure of earthly happiness that he can possibly 
obtain. From the indestructible nature of the moral 
feeling, the man who offends against that feeling 
never can be thoroughly happy. He stands condemned 
in his own estimation ; and, as he is in habitual con- 
sciousness of guilt himself, he is in constant apprehen- 
sion that this guilt may be known to others; and 
therefore he never has that frankness and freedom in 
society without which society cannot be enjoyed. 
" The wicked flee when no man pursueth ; but the 
righteous are as bold as a lion," is a truth confirmed 
by every-day observation. We do not allude so much 
to the man who associates with the worthless, or to 
the man who commits an occasional crime which may 
bring him under the cognizance of the law T , as to him 
whose life is one succession of mean and small trans- 
gressions, which the law does not reach, and which 
the rest of mankind so little notice or suspect that 
he is not driven out of society on account of them. 
He who has entered into the association of the sys- 
tematic breakers of the law* estranges himself from 
the rest of society, comes abroad only in the way of 



256 STATE OF 

his profession and under a mask ; and this mask he 
can afford to wear in his public hours, because, when 
he unbends himself to such enjoyment as a man of his 
character can have, he needs no moral restraint, as the 
applause which he wins there is in the ratio of his 
guilt, not of his innocence. The occasional crime, 
especially if it is an atrocious crime of passion, such 
as murder, under the extreme exasperation of revenge, 
or under the strong temptation of some great prospect 
of acquisition, is generally such torture to the party 
himself, that it drives him out of society. He may 
wander into some distant place, where he is wholly 
unknown, and where even the rumour of that which 
he has perpetrated never may reach, even as a common 
piece of news ; and he may conduct himself, not only 
in such a manner as to be above all suspicion, but he 
may win, and by his conduct deserve to win, a high 
place in the estimation and confidence of that society 
into which he has come. But still, the arrow of re- 
morse is within him for that which he formerly did, 
and the more he is esteemed, it only rankles the more 
grievously ; so that, after the lapse of many years of 
apparently virtuous and honourable life, he shall 
return to the place from which he fled, and shall 
confess his crime, and render himself up to justice, as 
an only though a vain hope of escape from a burden 
which is too grievous to be borne by human strength. 
The man of habitual mean and small deviations from 
virtue, whose offences are rather against the honour of 
society than the enacted laws of his country, has not 
the resource either of the one or the other of those to 



THE MEAN-SPIRITED. 25 7 

whom we have alluded. He continues still to associate 
with the virtuous part of society ; and thus, like the 
man of occasional crime who becomes a member of 
respectable society in a place where he is not known, 
he feels within himself that he is unworthy of those 
with whom he associates ; and, unlike the man who 
has been guilty of one atrocious crime, he has no 
single means whereby confession can give him a clean 
breast, and he can offer himself a sacrifice to the law. 
We do not mean to say that confession, in any sense 
of the word, can take away guilt, or that the death of 
a criminal by the hand of the public executioner can, 
in any way, be an expiation for the crime of which 
the sufferer has been guilty. The whole punishment 
part of the matter is nothing else than a partial con- 
tinuation of the old practice of atonement by sacrifice ; 
and the sanguinary laws of the moderns have merely 
come in the stead of those gods of human imagination 
to which our rude ancestors immolated their human 
victims. But still, if the surrender of himself to the 
officers of that law — we will not say justice, to which 
the life or the liberty of a man may be forfeited, is 
not an act of expiation, whereby reparation can in any 
wise be made to the party injured, or the conscience- 
stricken can, in any wise, be relieved from the moral 
burden of his guilt, yet the confession and surrender 
are acts of magnanimity, and acts of this description 
always afford temporary gratification; and thus it, 
for the time, relieves the mind by withdrawing it from 
the agony of the remorse, and giving it relief for the 
time, in the contemplation of this act of magnanimity. 

z 3 



258 CONTRAST OF THE 

It is rather a curious fact in human nature, but it is a 
fact, that guilt always longs for an expiation as a means 
of relief; so that the punishment which Man can 
inflict is a relief, though only a fancied relief, from the 
greater torment of the inward consciousness of those 
deviations from virtue, of which the world takes no 
cognizance. 

The man who has not even this false and imaginary 
relief of confession and surrender is yet more miser- 
able. He is tolerated in honourable society, and it 
sometimes happens that that society does him honour. 
The sins of this paltry creature are generally " wiles 
of winning," little frauds and dissimulations which 
may be practised from day to day without suspicion on 
the part of more open and honourable men. In the 
aggregate, both of the proceedings and the proceeds, 
their amount may be considerable — greater both in 
moral guilt and pecuniary acquirement than any single 
robbery ; but yet, the individual items of which this 
aggregate is made up, may be all so mean and con- 
temptible, that the party dares not, for shame, confess 
any one of them, but must bear in his own mind the 
burden of the whole, without any means or possibility 
of relief. 

This is a condition of mental torture to which it is 
difficult to imagine any parallel. The small vices of 
the party have raised him to a situation, the mere 
name of which brings him into daily contact with men 
of honourable minds, and he comes into their society 
with perfect consciousness that, if he were properly 
known, he would be despised and scouted. This leads 



VICIOUS AND THE VIRTUOUS. 259 

him to the practice of an habitual deception, which 
destroys his peace of mind, and he must have recourse 
to the most frivolous means to hide him from the ever- 
haunting goblin of his own disquieted mind. 

A man of the character which we have been at- 
tempting to describe may arrive at wealth, for it is the 
inordinate desire of wealth which is the foundation 
and cause of this meanness ; and we may add that 
the desire of wealth is, in itself, one of the most con- 
temptible desires by which any human being can be 
actuated. It is what may be called a second-hand 
desire — a desire of that power over other men which, 
from his own insignificance as a man, the party feels 
he has no means of obtaining but by purchase. 

How very different it is with the man who feels 
within himself no moral accusation. He has his 
whole mental energy always at his free disposal, so 
that he can turn the entire bent of it upon any subject 
or enterprize in which he engages ; and by having it 
thus free, he has far greater chance of attaining to 
eminence than the man who, even if his situation and 
connexion in life are more favourable, is habitually 
disturbed by the reminiscences of paltry vices. There 
have been instances of men of turbulent passions, and 
even of men who have been guilty of occasional out- 
breaks of passion, of very reprehensible nature, who 
have nevertheless attained to great eminence in science 
or in art, and thereby have rendered to society services 
which, in the end, far more than compensated for 
their occasional outbreaks ; but we are not aware of 
any one instance in which a mean man, habitually 



260 THE SYMPATHETIC 

addicted to small vices, arrived at any kind of emi- 
nence, unless the possession of wealth dishonourably 
acquired can be considered as such. We do not make 
these observations from any desire of excusing im- 
morality of any sort ; but merely to show that he who 
lives in the continual violation of morality, even 
though it is only in small matters, is the most con- 
temptible of characters in a social point of view, and 
the most successful outrager of his own happiness. 
Therefore, though our greatest good upon the whole 
is not the foundation of our feeling of moral good, or 
virtue, yet the constant practice of virtue is the surest 
means of procuring the greatest good for ourselves, 
in every sense of the term, and with regard both to 
the present world and to the eternal future. 

The fifth hypothesis of the foundation of virtue, or 
moral good, which we shall mention, is that of Sym- 
pathy, which has its most able— we may say delightful 
expounder in the justly celebrated Dr. Adam Smith. 
His "Theory of Moral Sentiments," is one of the most 
delightful books in the English language, or indeed 
in any language ; and the only exception which can 
be taken to it is, that the theory upon which all his 
exquisite reasonings are founded is not true. But, 
while we are in justice bound to say thus much against 
it, we are at the same time bound to say, that if it 
were possible that there could be an error worthy of a 
great man, the error of Dr. Smith's hypothesis is of 
that description. According to this hypothesis, we 
do not immediately approve of the virtuous action, 
or disapprove of the vicious one; we consider the 



HYPOTHESIS. 261 

circumstances in which the party is placed, and then 
we consider what would be our own feelings if we 
were placed in the same circumstances : and if the 
result of this comparison be that we would have acted 
as the party has acted, we conclude that the action is 
virtuous ; but, on the other hand, if we would not 
have acted as the party has acted, we conclude that the 
action is not virtuous. According to this hypothesis, 
therefore, it is not any merit or demerit in the agent, 
or any quality of the action, which makes us feel that 
the action is morally good or the reverse, it is the 
agreement or the disagreement of what is done with 
what we ourselves feel that we should have done had 
we been placed under the same circumstances. This, 
to say the least of it, is a very lax system of morals, 
— a system which would give origin to as many kinds 
of virtue as there are habits and dispositions among 
men ; and according to it, deceit and falsehood would 
be as much virtue among men of one character and 
habit, as truth and honour are among those of another. 
Thus, for instance, a man may be placed in a situation 
of the most unbounded confidence in respect to the 
property or even to the life of another man: and 
though there are men, and we hope the great majority 
of men, who would act honourably in both these 
respects, yet there are some men that would appro- 
priate property if committed to their charge, and 
even take away life if it stood in the way of the ac- 
complishment of their purposes. Now, supposing 
two men of these opposite ways of thinking on the 
subjects of property and life to contemplate a third 



262 ABSURDITY OF 

man acting in such a situation as that which we have 
supposed. If each of these were to approve or dis- 
approve of the conduct of the man in the situation of 
responsibility, according to what he himself would do 
in the same situation, then the virtue of each of these 
would be the vice of the other. Now, though virtue 
or goodness is merely a quality, and a quality of which 
we judge by immediate feeling, and not by any pro- 
cess of reasoning, yet the very same action cannot be 
both virtuous and vicious at the same time, from the 
mere circumstance of its being thus sympathized with 
by two men of different characters. Virtue, whatever 
it may be in itself, cannot at the same time be its own 
opposite, neither can any quality be changed by two 
men thinking differently of it. There is a little 
satirical caricature, in allusion to some scientific dis- 
pute, executed by De la Beche, which is no bad illus- 
tration here. It represents two (e learned Thebans," 
who have gone out in quest of the productions of 
nature, each with a fowling-piece in his hands, and 
the one with rose-coloured spectacles and the other 
with blue. They have come to a tangled and marshy 
place, overshadowed by trees, upon one of which sits 
an owl, in an attitude of composure worthy of the 
chosen bird of Minerva, and with an eye bent upon 
each of the rival naturalists. "What a beautiful rose- 
coloured bird/' says the one ; " Rose-coloured !" re- 
joins the other, " why, my dear sir, the bird is as blue 
as indigo ;" and if the sympathy of mankind were the 
only standard of virtue, we should have the same 
action as variously defined as the owl is by the two 



THE SELFISH SYSTEM. 263 

spectacled connoisseurs. There is this much further 
in the caricature, which is quite apt to the case in hand. 
It is the spectacles only that occasion the differences 
perceived by the two naturalists ; for if they had seen 
with their own eyes, they would have both remarked 
that the bird had the same tawny and mottled plumage 
which every one who has seen an owl knows that it 
exhibits, without the slightest tinge either of rose- 
colour or indigo blue. Just in the same manner, an 
action may appear in the cerulean blue of virtue to the 
sympathy of one man, and in the blush of vice to that 
of another; while to the moral feeling of both it 
would appear the same, and very different from what 
it did to the sympathy of either. Had it been possible 
for the talent of an author to give truth to a false 
hypothesis, Adam Smith would certainly have given 
truth to this one; but he has not succeeded in this ; 
and where such a master both of philosophy and lan- 
guage has failed, it would be vain for any other man 
to make the attempt. 

The sixth and last of these false hypotheses which 
we shall mention, is that which is usually called the 
selfish hypothesis, and which may also, without im- 
propriety, be called the sacerdotal one. This is the 
hypothesis of rewards and punishments, — that accord- 
ing to which mankind are to be bribed and beaten into 
the practice of virtue. If this had been an hypothesis 
unknown to vulgar practice, and propounded by some 
single philosopher upon the authority of only such 
reasoning as he could have adduced in support of it, 
all the kings and priests, and the whole drove, great 



264 THE SACERDOTAL HYPOTHESIS. 

and small, of those who school, and rule, and lecture 
mankind, would have been up in arms against him, 
and he would have been denounced with tenfold more 
fury than was ever poured on the devoted head of a 
man who dared to differ from the vulgar consecrators 
of the anathema and the gallows. 

We waive, in the mean time, the religious consider- 
ation, as the essential part of that between Man and 
his God ; and waiving this, we ask any man of com- 
mon understanding, how he can reconcile it with the 
idea of the wisdom and goodness of the Deity, which 
no man can fail in drawing from a very slight survey 
of the works of the creation, — how he can reconcile 
it with the perfection of all the other works of God, 
that Man should obviously be made for society, and 
should have powers and capacities which can be brought 
into exercise only in society ; and yet that he should 
have in his own nature no principle to guide him in 
that society, but that the rest of mankind must bribe 
or whip him into the sense and perception of even his 
first and simplest duties to them ? In a perfect 
creation, commanded into being by an all-perfect God, 
what shall we say of such an anomaly as this ? Is 
God incompetent or unjust ; or are they who hold the 
doctrine out of their senses? — "The fall of our first 

parents by eating the " The fall of a fiddlestick ! 

What imaginable business has that to do with the 
adaptation of Man for society in the present life ? If 
that event had not taken place, would the human 
body have lasted for ever, at the same time that it 
required to be supplied with food, and consequently 



FALLIBILITY, AND THE FALL. 265 

changed its substance in the very same way as human 
bodies do at the present time ? The fact is, as we have 
endeavoured to explain in another chapter, that this 
relates tothe obvious impossibility of a finite creature, 
acting upon his own experience — as Man must act, 
otherwise he could not be Man — and yet yielding per- 
fect obedience to an infinite law, which could not be 
done without infinite knowledge : and therefore, phy- 
siologically considered, Man is the same now, both in 
body and in mind, as he was at the moment of his 
creation ; and an infant newly born is as innocent as 
Adam could possibly have been. If Adam disobeyed 
a positive commandment, then that was Adam's actual 
transgression ; but the " fallibility, " so to call it, was 
in his nature before he fell, otherwise he could not 
have fallen, notwithstanding the temptation of all the 
serpents and all the Eves that fancy can imagine. 

Therefore, notwithstanding all the ignorance, all the 
false logic, and all the worse-motived mystifications in 
which this doctrine of the Fall of Man has been in- 
volved, we must still regard Man as the creature of 
God, endowed with powers and capacities correspond- 
ing to the situation in which his Maker has placed 
him ; and in this view of him we shall proceed to in- 
quire whether rewards and punishments are the only 
incentives to virtue, — that is, whether or not good is 
or is not mere selfishness in the individual. 

We shall take the system as defined by Dr. Paley, 
who is as remarkable for popularity and pleasantness 
of detail, as he is for errors in the foundations of all 
his theories. Virtue, according to Paley, consists in 

III. A A 



266 ERROR OF 

" doing good to mankind, in obedience to the will of 
God, and for the sake of everlasting happi- 
ness. 5 ' This passage is so very important, — as em- 
bodying the essence of the theory in very few words, 
that we have marked it in italics, and the last, or motive 
clause, in small capitals, in order the more strongly to 
draw the attention of the reader. 

That active virtue consists in " doing good to man- 
kind," is true ; and it is also true that our doing this 
is "in obedience to" what Paley calls "the will of 
God ;" but it is not true that " obedience to the will of 
God" is the motive of human virtue; for that is a 
matter of knowledge and not of feeling. We know 
nothing of the will of God ; and, indeed, " will," in 
any ordinary sense in which we can use or understand 
the term, cannot be predicated of the Almighty with- 
out a very near approach to blasphemy. " Will," in 
all senses in which we use it, has respect to the future, 
and with God there is no future — all things are pre- 
sent. Therefore, "the will of God" is an expression 
which has no meaning, unless we understand by it 
the feelings of nature and the precepts of revelation. 
If we throw it upon the former of these, we are sent 
to the human mind in search of the motive to virtue ; 
and if we throw it upon the latter, then men would 
be virtuous in proportion to the extent of their 
biblical knowledge, which is manifestly not true, — 
some of the meanest villains upon earth are not only 
well read in the Bible, but have the words of it con- 
stantly in their mouths, and that for the express pur- 
pose of hypocrisy and deceit. Now, if there were any 



DR. PALEY. 267 

talismanic effect in the Bible, every one who read it 
would act virtuously as a matter of necessity. 

Paley, of course, felt this, — felt that the ground he 
had taken would not bear him out ; and therefore, he 
added, " and for the sake of everlasting happiness," 
which alters the complexion of the assertion alto- 
gether, and makes it totally inapplicable to virtue. 
Let us take the case as it stands, and examine it a 
little. A man does good to mankind, for a few years 
in the present world, "for the sake of everlasting hap- 
piness," which implies, as clearly as words can imply, 
that, were it not "for the sake" of the everlasting 
happiness, the man would not do the good. Now, is 
not this a mere matter of bargain, and a bargain in 
which the man has greatly the advantage ; for he has 
to do the good during only a few years, and only oc- 
casionally during them, and he is to get everlasting 
happiness in return? Admitting, for the sake of ar- 
gument, — for in truth the admission cannot be al- 
lowed — that a man could actually enter into a bargain 
of this kind with the Almighty, — that he could say to 
his God, " I will agree to do good to mankind, as oc- 
casion may require, during the years of my activity 
upon earth, provided that you will give me everlasting 
happiness when this life is at an end," — and that 
thereupon a bargain were struck, — where would be 
the virtue — the moral good — on the part of the man ? 
We know that all allusion to a bargain of this kind is 
impious ; but the impiety is not ours, it is embodied 
and cloked up in Archdeacon Paley' s definition, and 
we only bring it out in its real character. It were 



268 palky's error 

well if this were done in the case of all those cloked 
impieties of which there are so many in the phrase- 
ology of certain pretending religionists. 

Admitting that Man knew the will of God, and 
could obey it, is he not bound to do so without any 
condition, upon the simple consideration that he is 
God's creature ? Nay, let him do his best, and he is 
a debtor to his God up to the present moment, and he 
must become more and more a debtor for every ad- 
ditional moment of his life. Admitting, then, that 
all his actions are as virtuous — as morally good toward 
mankind as human actions can be, where is he to find 
the price of everlasting happiness ? In this singular 
definition — and though singular, it is common — 
Paley's theology is as bad as his philosophy. " Virtue, 
or moral good, is selfishness; and Man is his own 
saviour," are the two immediate corollaries from the 
plain meaning of the definition; and " Paley's Moral 
and Political Philosophy" is one of the few books 
upon this most interesting of all subjects which one 
finds in the hands of general readers. 

The hypothesis of Paley, which appears to be a com- 
mon one among divines, is what may be termed the 
theologico-selfish hypothesis ; and it differs from the 
simple selfish system of the lay philosophers chiefly 
in bringing in everlasting life as the motive to virtue, 
while they stop at mere worldly interest : but the phi- 
losophy is not mended by this unnatural alliance, and 
the divinity is entirely out of place, — is, indeed, not 
divinity at all, but a collocation of unmeaning words. 

This selfish system, though the very enumeration of 



DESTROYS ALL VIRTUE. 



269 



it is a virtual denial of all morality, has been the fa- 
vourite one with the trainers and governors of man- 
kind in all ages. It is begun in the nursery, and con- 
tinued through life. The infant gets a sugar-plum for 
being "a good child," and is beaten, or threatened with 
a beating, for being " naughty;" the schoolboy gets 
a prize if he — or his parents — please the schoolmaster, 
and if he is idle or vicious, he is flogged or disgraced; 
the " good " rector becomes a bishop, the " stiff- 
necked" one dies a curate ; and so on through all the 
gradations of society ; and it often depends upon cir- 
cumstances whether the reward is given to the worthy 
or the worthless. 

Now, there is really not a jot of virtue — of moral 
good — in the whole of this. It all proceeds upon the 
quid pro quo principle. Man is schooled, from his 
cradle to his grave, in the craft and mystery of keeping 
his thoughts steadily upon the quid which he expects, 
all the time that he is fagging at the quo. Need we 
wonder, therefore, that there is so much selfishness in 
the world, and so little real openness and honesty of 
character ? Every man is taught to consider his own 
physical good as not only the grand object of his ex- 
istence, but as the only object which is worthy of his 
attention ; while the real principle of virtue — the na- 
tural feeling of right and wrong — is utterly neglected 
in practice, and written out of existence in theory. 
While the system of rewards and punishments con- 
tinues to be almost the only one that is taught, 
preached, legislated upon, and practised, we cannot 
expect much improvement. The foundation of virtue 

a a 3 



270 RELATION OF 

is a feeling which acts instantaneously, and waits for 
the calculation of no consequences ; and it instantly 
vanishes if either reward or punishment is so much 
as hinted at. The hare allusion to either the one or 
the other of these throws Man upon his selfishness ; 
and although this selfishness is not necessarily, or, in 
the majority of cases, vice, it certainly is not virtue. 
Even religion itself, in so far as it involves the deliver- 
ance of man from eternal wrath, and gives him the 
full assurance of faith in eternal happiness, is not 
virtue. This is a mere calculation of consequences ; 
and if the truth were forcibly brought home to the 
very worst man upon earth, he would be more power- 
fully affected, and would fear the punishment and 
desire the happiness more ardently than a better man. 
There is no devotee half so fervent in his zeal as a 
man who has been notoriously wicked, provided that 
he is properly frightened with the torments of hell ; 
and this is the principle upon which the church ob- 
tained so large a share of the possessions of this world. 
But still, all this giving of largesses is not virtue, nei- 
ther is it religion ; for it is perfectly compatible with 
the very worst character. Besides, there is always 
some suspicion about giving to the church, or to 
" pious uses :" it reminds one of him who essayed to 
" purchase the Holy Ghost with money." 

If, however, the religious feeling is of the proper 
kind, — if it comes not by the selfish stimuli of desires 
and fears, but " in the power of the spirit," the result 
is different. True, it makes no noise as the other 
does : it comes upon the mind, in all its affections, as 



VIRTUE AND RELIGION. 2/1 

" the peace of God/' calming all that is turbulent, 
and restraining all that is inordinately selfish, and thus 
giving scope to virtuous feeling, which that feeling 
cannot have under any other circumstances. The 
hope of eternal happiness, and the fear of eternal 
misery, are both softened down by a nobler and far 
more delightful feeling. The contemplation of the 
goodness of our God, who, of his own gracious plea- 
sure, and without merit or knowledge on our part, has 
created us, preserved us, and redeemed us, comes 
upon the mind as a subject of admiration immea- 
surably greater than all those actions of men which 
are so pleasing to virtuous feeling ; and ' e the love of 
God" fills our minds, and raises the moral feeling 
high above all emotion and all desire. Under this 
feeling, every duty becomes a pleasure ; and we find 
reason to be grateful, in all conditions and vicissi- 
tudes of life. Be they what they may, they are met with 
gratitude; and, whether our course be smooth or 
rough in physical estimation, we run it with gladness 
and joy. It is not the hope of reward, — it is not the 
fear of punishment ; for both of these are future emo- 
tions, and involve some uncertainty, which is always 
painful : it is gratitude for what has been done, and 
love and veneration for the doer, which become the 
habits of the mind ; and the feeling toward God is, 
" Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him." 

Such is the power of genuine religion upon the mind 
and conduct of man. It is not the mere pardon of 
sin, for a criminal may give thanks for pardon one 
hour, and commit a fresh crime the next : it is delivery 



272 TRUE RELIGION, AND 

from the guilty desire — the sanctification of the spirit 
— the raising of the moral feeling into the foremost 
place among the affections, as the ruler and governor 
of the mind ; and when this has once taken place, 
human laws are perfectly superfluous in their moral 
bearing ; for there is a guide within far more powerful 
and perfect than all the codes that ever were enacted 
by human legislators. In every country, however, 
there are many points of legislation which have little 
or no moral bearing, one way or the other ; and as 
the feeling of moral virtue, which religion elevates to 
its proper rank in the character, involves love of coun- 
try, or a branch of general philanthropy, or the love of 
man, a religious man will always yield ready and 
cheerful obedience to these. But, as the love of man 
would be a mere name if it were not followed by the 
desire of good to man, there is no reason why a reli- 
gious man should yield passive obedience to laws 
which are either faulty in principle or injurious in 
practice. On the contrary, genuine love of country 
necessarily involves the desire that all the institutions 
of that country should be as pure and as useful as they 
can be made. In short, a man who is imbued with 
the true spirit of religion will naturally be at all times 
a reformer, but never a rebel ; he will improve, and 
he will pull down if that is necessary to improvement, 
but he will never destroy. 

Whether it might or might not be possible, by any 
means which are at present known, or which may 
hereafter be discovered, to bring this power of reli- 
gious feeling to bear upon the minds of the whole, or 



ITS COUNTERFEIT. 273 

the majority, of the human race, we pretend not to 
say. We can say, however, that it has not yet been 
done ; and not only this, but that the progress of so- 
ciety in this genuine feeling of religion, appears to 
bear, and we may say actually does bear, no measur- 
able proportion to their progress in those arts and 
sciences which concern the present life only. On the 
contrary, there is a manifest falling off, which becomes 
more and more conspicuous every day. The cause of 
this, though an important inquiry, would obviously be 
a difficult one, and therefore we shall not enter upon 
it ; but the fact is too broad and glaring for conceal- 
ment. We have abundance of religious pretence ; — of 
church-building, and cant, and of trading and other 
societies, the members of which get gain and glory, — 
such glory as can be gotten by these means; but really 
one meets with very few who are actuated by genuine 
religious feeling, or even who have the slightest know- 
ledge of what it really is. Thus, we may still say of 
mankind, as was said by an ancient religionist, that 
while they are lifted up at the one side, they fall down 
just as much at the other. 

If we were to offer an opinion upon this very im- 
portant subject, we should be inclined to say that it is 
chiefly owing to what we call improvements in matters 
of knowledge. That is now reduced to a catalogue of 
mere results, which any one who can read can learn 
by rote as easily as he could learn a baby-rhyme or a 
ballad. For more ease in the application, this ready- 
reckoner of knowledge maybe as convenient as the 
ready-reckoner of prices is in the shop ; but both have 



274 STATE OF THE MIND 

a very pernicious effect upon the mind. As the ready- 
reckoner supersedes all necessity of knowledge of 
arithmetic, so those tinctures and essences of science, 
which are not always distilled in the purest or most 
perfect alembics, supersede the necessity of thinking ; 
and thus, while mankind are every day getting more 
and more expert in practice, they are getting more and 
more out of the capacity or habit of thinking, — a spe- 
cies of change which is certainly not much for the 
better. We do not mean to say that every man who 
has occasion to apply a truth in science or a principle 
in art, should demonstrate or trace it from the very 
beginning ; but we do say that every man ought to be 
practised in thinking and reasoning, otherwise he can 
neither be a useful nor a safe member of any society, 
whatever his station and employment in that society 
may be. 

In a country like Britain, where necessity compels 
the great majority of the people to be almost con- 
stantly occupied in manual labour of some kind or 
other, there is nearly the same difference to reconcile 
between the mercantile value of the individual as a 
labourer, and his moral value as a member of society, 
as there is between the physical and the moral good of 
the individual, in an ethical point of view. It is for 
the interest of trade, and also of the individual, in so 
far as mere handicraft dexterity is concerned, that the 
principle of the division of labour should be carried to 
the utmost extent, — that masters should have the 
superintendence of single trades, and that the dif- 
ferent operations of detail should be performed by 



OF SOCIETY. 2/D 

separate individuals. So far as the cheapness and 
quality of the things produced are concerned, there is 
no limit to this division ; and not only this, but the 
more that human labour can be withdrawn from merely 
mechanical labour, and mechanical power substituted 
in the place of it, it is the better for all parties. Work- 
men are sometimes apt to think that this is not true, 
and that they are ill-used when machines are intro- 
duced to supersede their labour ; but this arises from 
ignorance, and ignorance which is wholly or chiefly 
the result of that mechanical occupation which pre- 
vents them from exercising that very moderate por- 
tion of thought which would enable them to come to 
much more rational conclusions upon the subject. It 
is perfectly evident that, if a man is continually occu- 
pied in doing what could be done by the power of 
falling water, of animals, or of steam, giving motion 
to a certain quantity of machinery, the man works 
only as the physical power and the machine, and his 
mind is perfectly neglected. This is the result to 
which the division of labour tends ; and the man who 
does nothing but what is mechanical, becomes unfit 
for judging and reasoning, not only upon subjects of 
an abstract nature, but even upon the common prin- 
ciples of right and wrong ; and more especially upon 
the relation in which he stands to that society of which 
he is a member. 

In times of tranquillity, and of steady progress in 
the several trades and manufactures to which these 
observations apply, the evil of them is not felt; but in 
the case of changes and reverses in the trades them- 



276 STATE OF THE PUBLIC MIND. 

selves, and especially in times of political agitation, 
the danger of a great multitude of what may really be 
called mindless men, collected together at the same 
spot, and with their undiscerning emotions at the 
mercy of any demagogue who chooses to inflame them, 
have been too often experienced to require any par- 
ticular illustration. This is a consequence which will 
always necessarily arise from the division of labour, 
and the consequent want of exercise in thought, of a 
number of people collected together, and conversant 
with little or nothing save the details of their me- 
chanical labour, and the indolence or the dissipation 
in which characters of this kind are all but necessi- 
tated to spend the pauses of their labour. 

How to reconcile these differences is a matter of 
extreme difficulty. It cannot be done by common 
school education, either that very rudimental portion 
which falls to the share of the mere operatives in a 
manufacturing town, or by any extent to which they 
may be enabled to carry it by libraries, institutions, 
lectures, or any of the means usually resorted to for 
such purposes. These matters may be rendered ex- 
ceedingly useful in as far as the private morality of the 
parties is concerned ; for they not only prevent the 
leisure-hours from being spent in idleness and dissi- 
pation, but they elevate the character, by giving a 
certain degree of mental exercise. Generally speaking, 
however, the subjects to which those instructions re- 
late, do not harmonize with the more essential occu- 
pations of the parties, and they throw little or no light 
upon those principles of society, the tendency of which 



RELIGION AND POLITICS. 277 

is to make a man feel contented and happy, and even 
proud in his usefulness, of what nature or kind soever 
that usefulness might be. There are no useful rules 
of conduct which can be directly inferred from the 
physical sciences, although, when the principles of 
society are once fully understood, physical science 
affords some very beautiful illustrations of them ; and 
at establishments of the kind whereof we have been 
speaking, it is generally thought advisable to proscribe 
religion and politics as subjects with winch it is dan- 
gerous to meddle ; and we are ready to admit, that if 
either the one or the other of these is to be made, as 
is too generally the case, a matter of wrangling and 
disputation, the more that it is avoided the better. 

Notwithstanding this, politics and religion are the 
very subjects upon which such parties stand in need 
of information, and upon which, if they do not, by 
some means or other, get more information than they 
now possess, and information of a different character 
to any to which they appear to have access, there will 
be no alternative but that they shall retain their pre- 
sent character of a mine in society, ready to be sprung 
by any one who is daring and dexterous enough to 
apply the match. 

This seems to be an evil quite inseparable from very 
artificial states of society ; and, if it does admit of a 
remedy, that remedy, if it is to be effectual, must be 
numbered among the discoveries that have yet to be 
made. It is quite clear, however, that, until some 
such remedy, either perfect or approximate, is found 
out, legislation, in such states of society, must re- 
in. B B 



278 SUMMARY OF 

main a matter of extreme difficulty, and one to the 
blunders of which, fatal as these must be in their con- 
sequences, it behoves us to be as charitable as we can. 
We have entered at so much length into the subject 
and source of moral good, that we have left but little 
room for the consideration of particular emotions. 
This is the less to be regretted, however, from these 
being detailed at length by most writers upon the 
subject, and also from there being a considerable simi- 
larity in the emotions themselves, and a difference in 
their objects only. They comprehend, as has been 
said, the whole of our desires, and of our fears, which 
fears are also desires, under a different name. They 
all originate in ourselves; but good or evil to ourselves 
is not, according to the explanation which we have en- 
deavoured to give of moral feeling, our only objects 
of desire or fear. The following may be regarded as 
the principal ones : — The desire of continued life, and 
the fear of death ; the desire of happiness, and the fear 
of misery ; the desire of knowledge, to which there is 
no fear exactly corresponding. These may be con- 
sidered as the most immediately personal of all our 
desires ; and yet, when we analyse them, they are all 
found to have a very considerable reference to society. 
We desire to live in society, to be happy in society, 
and to display in society that knowledge which we 
wish ; and if we were to abstract the consideration of 
society from any of them, the remaining desire would 
be very faint. Besides these, we have the simple or 
direct desire of society, and the fear of being deserted 
and left alone in the world, which is a very painful 



OTHER DESIRES AND FEARS. 2/9 

emotion, especially when associated, as it generally is, 
with the fear of helplessness in ourselves. We also 
desire to have the esteem of those with whom we asso- 
ciate, and the fear of losing their good opinion ; and 
it is chiefly to the operation of this desire, and this 
fear, that all the courtesies of society are owing. A 
more intense degree of this forms the desire of glory, 
or of being admired by that society w r hich we love ; 
and so strong is this desire, that it extends beyond the 
period of life ; for many submit to the greatest hard- 
ships and privations, and even to death itself, for the 
sake of the memory they are to leave behind. The 
fear of shame is the counterpart of this ; and the two 
emotions together, when duly exercised, lead us to 
that which is great and noble, and restrain us from 
what is mean and contemptible. The desire of power 
is distinct from that of glory, and it admits of sub- 
division into a direct power, which is somewhat allied 
to glory, and often associated with it ; and an indirect 
power, which is more allied to meanness, though not 
necessarily associated with it. The first of these divi- 
sions is ambition, or the desire of excelling and com- 
manding others by means of our real or our fancied 
superiority as men ; and the second is avarice, or the 
desire of obtaining by purchase that which the ambi- 
tious man is desirous of commanding by personal 
greatness. Within proper limits, both of these desires 
are useful and commendable ; but the due regulation 
of them requires a full knowledge of ourselves and of 
society. The tendency of ill-regulated ambition is to 
tyranny and oppression; and unless the ambitious 
man stops in time, he very generally falls a sacrifice 



280 DESIRES AND FEARS. 

to the violence of his own emotion. The tendency of 
avarice is toward injustice, or at all events to a degree 
of narrowness and meanness, which greatly diminishes 
both the esteem and the usefulness of its possessor ; 
and when it is carried beyond a certain length, the 
avaricious man actually includes himself in that society 
towards which he wishes to be parsimonious; and 
denies himself the ordinary comforts of life for the 
mere purpose of accumulating wealth ; and as he ap- 
proaches this stage, he loses sight of that power of 
which he at first desired the means, and limits himself 
to the means instead of the end. We also desire the 
good of society upon very nearly the same principle 
as we desire to enjoy the esteem of it ; and it is in 
consequence of this desire that we perform our public 
duties, from the very humblest of these to that patri- 
otism which makes a man sacrifice his life for the good 
of his country. 

Of these desires, if they are duly regulated, there is 
not one which can be said to be malevolent, though 
they may all be abused in the extent to which they 
are carried; but there is one desire which is always 
malevolent, though sometimes necessary, and that is, 
the desire of injury to those whom we hate, or of re- 
venge, as it is usually termed. As the direct object 
of this emotion is always mischief to somebody, we 
require to be much more on our guard against it than 
against any of the others. We sometimes have just 
cause to be angry; but if the anger remains, and settles 
down into implacable hatred, we should w r atch the pro- 
gress of it with the utmost solicitude. 



281 



CHAPTER VII. 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 



The social institutions have for their object the in- 
struction and the regulation of mankind; but the 
instruction part may be looked upon as an after- 
thought, upon which much less attention is bestowed 
than upon that which relates to governing or regu- 
lating. This is the most important matter connected 
with Social Man, and yet it is one in which there are 
very few first principles upon which anything like a 
compact or comprehensible science can be founded. 
One reason of this appears to be, the impossibility of 
tracing social government to its origin. Societies are 
always mended from time to time, but they are never 
made. We may form theories of the origin of society, 
just as we form theories of the origin of language, and 
those theories may have different degrees of proba- 
bility ; but the very best of them are either altered 
copies of society as it exists or has existed, or they are 
mere fancies of the framers. 

It cannot well be otherwise ; for we know of no 
source from which the data necessary to the formation 
of a society could be obtained, but in another society. 

b b 3 



282 DIFFICULTIES OF 

Therefore, it must have grown up by a series of ex- 
periments, — of trials and errors ; and, of course, its 
future progress must go on in nearly the same way, 
though after a long time the successful experiments 
may be generalized into a sort of imperfect maxims. 
There is another difficulty, for society is in itself pro- 
gressive, and therefore the maxims which answer very 
well for a regulation at one time, are not applicable at 
another; and thus the very principles have to be ascer- 
tained by temporary experiments. 

All these difficulties, too, arise from the nature of 
the subject itself, on the supposition that those who 
frame the regulations have perfect will and capacity 
of dealing with equal justice toward all ranks and 
classes of the society. This, however, cannot be the 
case, not perhaps even in a single instance ; or if it 
did occur, it would be by chance, or we may almost 
say by miracle. Waiving the question of intention 
or will on the part of those who make the regulations, 
there is a source of inequality in the application of 
those relations of which they never can get the better. 
When, indeed, the structure of society is very simple, 
and the only distinctions are those of master and 
servant, leader and follower, or tyrant and slave, as 
the case may be, and where there are scarcely any 
distinctions between the different members either of 
those who rule or those who obey, the case might be 
understood, and the interests of the parties might 
be equitably adjusted to each other. It so happens, 
however, that this limited classification belongs to 
very rude and ignorant states of society only, — that in 



SOCIAL REGULATIONS. 283 

these states, Man is the chief possession of Man, — that 
in most instances the governed have no voice in the 
regulation, and that they have no resistance to make 
other than physical resistance, or direct rebellion, 
which is, under all circumstances, a hazardous experi- 
ment, and one in which mankind, unless goaded on 
by a rebellious leader, are never forward to engage 
Therefore, in these states of society, the regulations 
are little else than the will of the governor for the 
time being ; and consequently, the state of the society 
will be found somewhere between the limits of pa- 
triarchal happiness and despotic misery, according to 
the character of the ruler. 

After society has made great advances, and the 
members of it have become arranged into so many 
and so varied classes and ranks, there are new din? - 
culties which arise. This improved state of society is 
incompatible with any very extreme degree of indi- 
vidual tyranny ; because, the human mind never dis- 
plays its power under the immediate pressure of 
despotism. Consequently, there must be, at least, 
some desire of equality in the operation of the law 
upon the different classes; and, though there may 
possibly be secret intentions adverse to this, yet there 
must be at least an ample profession of liberality, for 
the sake of pleasing all parties. 

It is not with the intention, however, we have to 
do, in the mean time ; and indeed the intention with 
which any law or regulation may be framed, is a 
matter of very minor importance to those to whom 
that regulation is to be applied. In legislation, as 



284 INTENTIONS IN LAW-MAKING. 

well as in other matters, the very worst enactments 
proceed from the very best intentions ; and, on the 
other hand, there are instances in which an enact- 
ment which was intended to serve a bad purpose, has 
actually served a good one. Besides, it does not 
appear that in the making of laws, the intentions of 
the parties are very essential points for consideration, 
whatever they may be in the carrying of those laws 
into execution, or against parties who violate them. 

The difficulty, in the case of highly-improved and 
artificial societies, lies quite in another direction — in 
the knowledge which is necessary in order to make 
any new regulation where it ought to be. The diffe- 
rent relations of the people of such a kingdom as 
Britain to each other, are so very numerous, and some 
of them are so continually changing, that it would not 
be easy, nor indeed possible, for the most intelligent 
man in the country to understand them properly, even 
though he were to devote his whole life to the study 
of them. But, we have no reason to suspect that any 
man will, or can, so devote his life. This w r ould be a 
most laborious occupation, and at the same time it 
would be wholly unproductive. A man w T ho could 
obtain his subsistence, and support his place and style 
in society, without much labour, would be very unlikely 
to enter upon such a task as this ; and a man who 
had to labour, or to follow any profession for his sub- 
sistence, could not afford to engage in this laborious 
inquiry. Therefore we may consider it as an esta- 
blished truth, that there is no man in England, or 
anywhere else, possessed of sufficient knowledge for 



LAW-MAKERS. 285 

enabling them to frame any general law which would 
bear with perfect equity upon all classes of people in 
the British Islands. 

Every man capable of forming any opinion upon a 
subject of this kind, must himself belong to, and 
chiefly associate with, some one class. For this very 
reason he must have some prejudice in favour of his 
own class ; and though this prejudice may make him 
misunderstand or overrate both its importance and its 
interests, yet he will necessarily be much more familiar 
with the habits, the wants, and the wishes of that 
class than of any other, and this in the natural course 
of association, and without reference to any bias or ob- 
ject, to which even the most fastidious could find fault. 

If we were to suppose a collection of delegates from 
all ranks of a society, from the sovereign to the parish 
pauper, to meet for the purpose of concocting a law, 
we should still be no better than in the case of a single 
individual who went about the business with the same 
honesty of purpose as we shall suppose to actuate the 
assembly of whom we speak. Indeed, there would be 
no chance of such an assembly coming to a conclusion 
which would embody their general sentiments, or bear 
equally upon all. For, in the first place, the same 
influence of superior rank over inferior, as controls the 
whole of society", would control the delegates of whom 
we speak ; and, in the second place, if we are to sup- 
pose that each speaks out his sentiments in favour of 
his own class as another does, we do not see how they 
could by any argument come to any general conclusion 
at all. If they were taken from a limited number of 



286 PROPER LAW-MAKERS 

classes, unanimity would become easier in proportion 
as the number of classes became more limited, though, 
even if they were all chosen from one class, perfect 
unanimity could not be expected. Then, as the 
number of classes were diminished for the sake of the 
unanimity, the application to the whole of society of 
that upon which they agreed, would be narrowed by 
all the classes left out; and this not with any reference 
to intentional doing of wrong, but for the want of 
knowledge, which the parties cannot, in the nature of 
things, obtain, or understand if they were to have it 
told them. 

Therefore, it really does appear, that there are no 
means of obtaining the proper men and the proper 
knowledge, so as to be able to frame a law which will 
bear with perfect equity upon all classes and deno- 
minations of men, in a society so very varied as that 
of the British Islands. What is bad in the existing 
regulations, will naturally tell in the effects which it 
produces ; and the want of new regulations may also 
be, in part at least, palpable to observation. But 
still, neither in the one of these cases nor in the other, 
is the discovery of the injurious regulation, or of the 
injury from the want of a regulation, perfect. 
Neither the one nor the other can by possibility tell 
upon the whole of society, or even on any considerable 
portion of it, at any one time ; and therefore, whether 
it is the evil of a regulation, or the evil of the want of 
a regulation, which is complained of, there is no know- 
ing whether obedience to the voice of the complaining 
party might not do injury to all the rest, and thus 



ARE HARD TO FIND. 28? 

indirectly hurt the complainers themselves. There is 
another point worthy of our attention here, and that 
is, the strong disposition which people have to place 
their little individual grievances upon the back of any 
great public grievance which happens to be making a 
noise at the time, and they do this the more readily 
the less they understand about the nature and reality 
of the public grievance. This is a very common 
practice with mankind ; they always attach a sort of 
mysterious importance to that which is vaguely under- 
stood, and they do so very much in the ratio of their 
vagueness of understanding. Superstitious persons 
are never afraid of ghosts and spectres on an open 
common, or in broad daylight ; but thick groves, dark 
caverns, vaults and dungeons in ruins, and scenes of 
darkness generally, are peopled with subjects of 
alarm. It is much the same in the case of those 
subjects of social regulation which strongly affect the 
public mind. They produce the effect always in the 
inverse ratio of the degree in which they are under- 
stood, and in that of the capacity of the parties to 
understand them. Hence, when a popular clamour 
is raised against an existing regulation, or in favour 
of a new one, there are a thousand ideal things mixed 
up with it ; and the desired object is sought as a 
fancied relief from a countless number of personal 
sufferings and annoyances, with which it has no more 
connexion than it has with the succession of events 
on the most distant planet in the solar system. 

Our limits will not suffer us to go at any length 
nto the subject of social institutions, and therefore 



288 ILLUSTRATIONS. 

we have offered these general observations on the 
extreme difficulty which lies in the way of the right 
conducting of those institutions, so as to keep them 
in the nearest possible accordance to the varying 
states of society. We have supposed that the will of 
doing for the best is not wanting ; and we believe that, 
in most modern instances at least, want of will has 
been by no means the general cause of failure. Want 
of knowledge is the difficulty ; and that difficulty is 
the more insurmountable from its extending to the 
men and the means by which the knowledge is likely 
to be obtained. 

A glance at the progressive history of British 
legislation will show any one the extent of these 
difficulties, and how rapidly they increase as the 
activity and the interests of society multiply ; — only, 
in taking this glance, we must be careful not to con- 
found two causes which, though they combine in 
producing the same effects, are yet different from each 
other. A new law, whether of repeal or of original 
enactment, has two distinct bearings, one upon the 
general mass of the statute-book, and the other upon 
society. The statute-book is very voluminous; its 
parts are exceedingly varied, sometimes contradictory 
of each other, and almost always enveloped in a thick 
crust of words. Nobody will read the statute-book 
for amusement, and as few will do so as a matter of 
general education ; and thus, it is not too much to 
say that, of those who successively compose the 
legislature, whether in the Lords or the Commons, 
there is not one in twenty who has a general-outline 



PARLIAMENTARY FRAILTIES. 289 

knowledge of those laws which he is called upon to 
alter or to augment. This ignorance would probably 
be unavoidable under any circumstances ; and formed 
as the British Houses of Parliament are, it is abso- 
lutely unavoidable. It is true that there are lawyers 
among the number, but all lawyers do not either con 
the statutes at large, or consider the bearing of a law 
upon the general weal of all classes of men in the 
country ; and, besides this, it is said, and there may 
be truth in it, that lawyers are fond of laws with 
loop-holes, as these let fees in and clients out. 

The bearing of the new enactment upon the interests 
of the different classes of the people, is a subject upon 
which the legislature are, if possible, more ignorant ; 
and though inquiries, and tedious and expensive in- 
quiries are often made upon particular points, yet 
these are seldom extensive enough, and as they are 
usually instituted with a view to the carrying into 
effect of some preconcerted measure, there is always 
some chance that there shall be a bias toward that 
measure running throughout the whole of the in- 
vestigation. 

By these means, the members of the Houses are 
thrown mainly upon their respective parties in politics, 
as that by which themselves or their measures shall 
stand or fall. This is very much the case, whether 
the matter at issue be of general or of local interest. 
We do not see, in the present state of things, how 
this dependence upon political party can be avoided. 
There are no fixed standards, by which they can be 
guided in almost any one matter, — even in those 

in. c 



290 PARLIAMENTARY 

matters which, one would suppose, could be deter- 
mined upon purely physical grounds. Thus, for 
instance, if the matter upon which they have to 
deliberate and decide is so simple a matter as two 
new lines of road from one place to another, there 
is no standard to which both of them can be referred. 
Now, the application to the legislature is necessary in 
such cases only to make sure that money which is 
levied or otherwise obtained from the public, shall 
be applied to the greatest possible public good ; and, 
that the money shall not be squandered, is only one 
part of the parliamentary duty, — the other, and per- 
haps the more important one is, that the accommo- 
dation which the public receive in return for their 
money, shall be the very best which, under the cir- 
cumstances, it is possible to obtain. This is by much 
the most serious part of the business ; for a judicious 
public improvement will very soon pay its own cost, 
but if a public work is once constructed in the wrong 
place, or according to the wrong plan, it becomes a 
burden rather than a benefit. 

Now, if there is a want of any standard, by which to 
ascertain which is the best in these local matters, how 
much more serious must be the injury of not having a 
standard in those general matters which affect the 
whole country, or at least numerous classes in all 
parts of it ; and yet it does not appear that in these 
important matters there is any standard attainable ; 
but that, on the contrary, every new measure, how 
well soever it may appear in theory, has to be tried 
before its real value can be ascertained. This ne- 



BLUNDERS. 291 

cessity of experiment becomes more and more ur- 
gent every session; and acts of parliament of the 
present time require much more revision and amend- 
ment after they have been tried than used to be 
required many years ago. 

For a long period, indeed, and up to times com- 
paratively recent, when an act was once passed, there 
it remained, and little or no question was raised about 
its propriety or its impropriety. It was an act of 
parliament — a statute which had passed the legislature, 
and received the assent of the sovereign, and that was 
deemed enough. 

Such is not the case now ; and why is it not the 
case ? Have the members of the Houses become less 
perceptive and patriotic than they of those former 
times ? Certainly not. They have partaken in the 
general enlightenment, have abandoned the idea of 
their infallibility, and have followed the custom of all 
rational men, in proceeding by experiment in those 
cases where they have no fixed and unalterable 
principle to guide them. This may often be done 
with more words than are necessary, and with more 
wrangling and party feeling than are quite seemly; 
but, taken altogether, it is unquestionably an improve- 
ment, the strongest proof of which is, that, under the 
exercise of it, the country advances more and more 
every day, in every art and in every enjoyment. 

The greatest improvement of all is, that legislators 
begin to discover where their labours can be useful, 
and where they cannot ; and therefore they have, 
upon most subjects, abandoned the old and mistaken 



292 CONCLUSION. 

notion that they could by these enactments directly 
promote the industry, the wealth, and the happiness 
of the people. This they cannot do ; but they have 
still a field in which to win glory, by removing many 
remaining obstructions which the ignorance of their 
predecessors left in the way, and by restraining those 
interferences of one class with another, which, un- 
restrained, are calculated to do mischief ; and which 
are therefore legitimate subjects of regulation. 

It might seem that we should here enter upon an 
analytical investigation of the several social institutions, 
for instruction, for regulation, and for the relief of 
those who are ill able to help themselves ; but the 
consideration of these, or any of them, would bring 
us in contact with subjects of wrangling, which we 
wish by all means to avoid. 



THE END. 



L. GRAVES AND CO., PRINTERS, LONflOK. 


















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